On writing ‘Ramiz’ my poetry Book

Hey everyone. I hope everything has been fine and blessed on your end, and today I’m going to talk about something very special and close to my heart.This year I got the chance to publish and launch my poetry book ‘Ramiz’. I had been working on it for about three or four years as a concept for a proper book, there had been multiple delays and distractions in between that got in the way. But that’s fine, because it wasn’t until this passing December that I finally felt that Ramiz was complete and ready for the world.So I’m going to talk about what Ramiz is about . Ramiz was a cousin of mine who we lost a couple of years ago, he died in between my uncle and my mama. During that time I wasn’t really writing anything, I was out of pretty much everything. I had given up on a lot of things. It was during that time that I wrote one poem about Ramiz, with his name as the title, on a rough page with black ink. And by some miracle I never lost that singular,flimsy page. Years after that I thought about writing more poems along the same theme,sound and feel. Initially it was about thirty pages, which I thought this was enough. By this time I was in my university, the first semester, I was working for my publisher and I figured that everything would happen really fast. But I kept on delaying things myself.So fast forward three years, Ramiz was completed with about fifty poems, one short story and one personal essay, and at the brink of the final semester. I wouldn’t really call the end perfect. I wasn’t able to fulfill the complete the mental image that I wanted, and everyone I wanted to be there wasn’t able to make it. But I’ve learned to not be so obsessed with images and dreams and take things as they are, and walk out of my mind. I was also able to have my first photography exhibition on the same day. My father was there, and I spoke rather well on stage, so I guess everything turned out fine.So what is Ramiz about?Ramiz, I guess the book about dealing with someone not being there. Someone slipping away, and you having to live them no being there. It’s about feelings of loss,change,regret and pain, all packaged in symbols and beauty, without taking any names.It’s also about nostalgia, or the relationship we have with time, and how unreal it can feel at times, as nothing makes sense and we don’t know how to react to anything.It’s about love.And as a whole the book is about growing up, having personal closure and letting everything go.And I feel like it’s development mirrors my own growth and journey as a a mature person. The world just feels more open and welcoming now. It practically made me see the value in art and literature.Apart from that I want to say the writing is fairly simple, and easy to read. The color blue is very important to the context, images and theme of the book, I sort of inserted it into everything. And lyrically and sonic-ally the sounds follow a lot of nursery rhymes and slowly grow into more complex and dense sounds.And I’m going to keep on writing the future also, and have some fun ideas to work on. But I don’t think I will be able to give it the same dedication, tears and love as I have given Ramiz. Something so natural to my destiny.

I’m going to work on getting Ramiz out to everyone now. But I don’t have an ordering link at the moment. As soon as that is up, I’m going to share it with everyone. It’s going to a modern testament of love and a classic.

Load Wedding ( 2018) – Review

 

 

 

 

‘Load Wedding’, is a cute little comedy slash social commentary film by director Nabeel Qureshi and producer Fizza Ali. It stars Pakistani trail blazers Fahad Mustafa and Mehwish Hayat as the main couple. It’s a simple and elaborate film that at most is a breath of fresh needed air, elaborate and well- balanced.

The movie follows a shy,cute and introverted Raja, who wants to marry his childhood crush Meeru, who has recently been widowed. But standing in his way is the inactive marriage of his Baby Bajee, and the dowry that he has to get for her.

 

So just to say off the bat, I loved this movie. The actors main and side were excellent and they all fit in well to create a wholesome,authentic, sincere and not stereotypical and exaggerated portrayal of  desi people. Pujabis in particular.

 

The movie looks beautiful, and the colors are enough to make someone feel welcome and warm, in this era of ugly and in the shadows cgi. The cinematography is always dynamic, visual sweetness and I liked it was a lovely site of what a small town actually looks like, and not some over the top display of money and unnecessary show sha. It does well with it has, and what it should have. I in particular loved Raja’s sweaters.

On the social side, I think the movie actually got to display the problem of dowry in a unique and thoughtful way, that I haven’t seen before. The film actually shows and doesn’t tell, it even takes the message out to the people inside their homes. Raja works hard to get the dowry for his sister, and fulfill his responsibilities, but hurdles always seem to get in the way, and it feels like they have to sacrifice their self respect to get the deed done. But it’s then that everything turns around, and that also  by finally confronting the bigotry in society and speaking up for oneself, which Raja does finally vocalizing his   sentiment and making a spot on analysis of the situation.

I loved that scene so much. And everyone should watch this movie. Because very few movies can be entertaining, innovative, fun, authentic and hard hitting all at the same time without falling short. Load wedding is something for and by the culture, but like all great works of art it needs to spread out into the masses.

 

So yeah. Watch Load Wedding, it’ll give a good cry and laugh.

 

 

 

You can watch the movie here

Thoughts about ‘ The Little Mermaid’

 

 

 

 

 

‘The Little Mermaid’ is a fairy tale from the Hans Christian Anderson collection, and perhaps most famously known as the loosely based Disney animated film, which has equally enchanted audiences and readers around the world.

It is a story about a young mermaid princess, who wants more from her life and escape her limitations. Having fallen for and saving a human prince from drowning, she makes a bargain with a sea witch. She gives her voice away for two legs, and needs to have her feeling returned or else perish with the rising sun. Not to be loved and not to attain a soul. She chooses to be the self-sacrificing person and even if she doesn’t the prince, she gets what she truly wants, a soul.

‘The little Mermaid’ in the simplest form is a recount of unrequited love. It’s about not getting what you want, perhaps a selfish or greedy journey, but what stands out is the emotional investment and the sacrifices that go in the way for that dream. It is something that speaks to the private feelings of the personal lives of people, who hide their hurt, and make way by sublimation, by destroying the past. But the young girl does with all her desire, all her pain, does not let the bitterness or defeat corrupt her.

In that sense the story is more of a hero’s journey, of self actualization, a path for a painful loss of innocence and change. It is both tragic and beautiful, because she gets what she wants just not how she wanted it.

The story may not always be a feminist favorite, since she willingly leaves everything for a man, and her love involves a lot of suffering and she doesn’t get what she wants, which narratively contrasts with how male characters are able to pine for a get the girl. Symbolically also the color red is associated with the male in the story. The coral around the statue that the mermaid idolizes is a bright red, and when she dies the sun is a burning red flame, showing a victory or overpowering of the male over the female. People also generally take issue with the protagonist being a questionable role model, stating she is silly, for giving up her life. They take issue with the fact she runs away from home, falls in love with someone she doesn’t know and par takes in black magic. So obviously conservative society and parents don’t want their daughters doing the same.

I personally don’t feel that way. I think what Anderson did was inverse a generally anti-woman trope into something humane and heart-felt. He turned Sirens into mermaids. A siren is basically the sea version of what witches were on land, the images and lives of women demonized and disrespected through the male gaze. Be it Medusa, Homer’s fight with the sea witches or general stories of sailors being brought down to death at the voices of bewitching sirens, it’s hard to see how female sexuality and romantic feelings have always been seen as something worthy of punishment. And they in the biblical sense must be cursed and become a symbol for all other women to not do the same. And that it only men who can actively battle and fight for love, that also outside the consent or control of the women that they love. They must fight those in their way and she must accept the victor, because he is the winner. Not because she can decide for herself.

 

 

‘The little Mermaid’ does not exist in the same context. Here is have a child who will through her encounter with the world become who she was always meant to be. She is not evil, wicked or filled with any jealous intentions, she is just young, innocent and in love. Instead of bringing the prince down to die, she saves him from death, but is not recognized for it. There is a selfless quality in her actions. And even when she leaves her family, home and makes a deal with the devil, we forgive her. We don’t feel the need to watch her pay for her sins, because she is brave enough to willfully suffer if she is able to be with the boy she comes to love. Every step she takes with human legs is like walking on knives, and without a voice she is unable to confess her feelings. And when is left out in the cold by the prince she still decides to spare him his life, for her character and her spirit out ways his ignorance and existence. The heavens at last do not strike her for having a heart but it blesses her. She becomes an angel like being, literally rising above the mess.

 

The story overall has very strong Eco-feminist tones to it. The girl is raised by her wise grandmother, who makes sure the child gets her education. She has older sisters to look up to, she is able to get legs through a sea witch. The women dominate the story, and the only place we feel a lack feminine care, is that the mermaid does not have a mother, and that she has this obvious fascination and love for the male spectacle. This also follows the mermaid as a character who is able to transcend all the divided parts of society, probably because she wants to actually more than what society deems acceptable.She moves from the sea, to the land and finally to the ethereal realm.

It is a story of dynamic magic, transformation, growth and following one’s dream and being what we all are as young star-crossed people. We are alone in our personal battles against destiny.

Fading Graves – A Photo Essay

I decided to go to the graveyard in December. The last time I came here, it was summer, and I was in higher spirits. I was happier and with more possibilities in front of my ignorant eyes. This time I am cold, evasive with all the possibilities in the world and the sun shining brightly down on me.

It’s an old graveyard. Old enough that some of the older graves that no one comes to visit are being replaced by the dead for who there are people willing to cry. People who want the best land for them to be buried in, and who will come back to visit them. The place is old, and for the older ones buried is a waiting place until they are finally forgotten and no one comes to see them.

We try hard to deny the reality of death, and we try hard to keep the dead alive, and if not alive we try to honour their memory, as much as we can. It’s just not easy.

Outside my university, is a memorial that I came across that day. It was for a girl who died in an accident. It said that twenty-four trees were planted in her memory for the twenty four years she lived on this earth. Have we not forgotten this girl who I will not name? There are no trees at that place anymore, and the memorial is vandalized. On that lovely stone that is left and forgotten with her reminder is unjust fully spray painted with an advertisement. Is this not disrespect?

Must we disrespect the dead? And if we must, what is there for us to do to offend them with? How are they supposed to respond to us? And when everything is done how are we supposed to ask them to forgive us?

Were so suspicious about death, and we are afraid of it. Rightfully so, even if it is as natural as birth and life. Our existence is always in question, life feels so timeless, stretched out and often in the time of sleep unreal. Death is only thing that lets us know we are alive, and that one day we will cease to be.

And perhaps that is the center and the finish line to all our fears.

They say girls aren’t supposed to visit the graveyard. I go any way. I’m not trying to offend anyone and I’m not trying to prove anything.

But there is nothing to be afraid of. Of all the harm the living inflict on you and all the danger that follows people around, why be suspicious of something that isn’t there.

There’s nothing there. Nothing but the fading memories of the dead.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Maybe a sign or a reminder.

Why does everything I love have to become a target for you?

It’s ironic. When I was at the graveyard, my father was at a funeral. He came there to pick me up, and in his voice was a nervous laughter. Yesterday was the day all those kids were killed.

And we are driving away and lighting candles for them.

That funeral was for a boy. He was 26. Died of a heroin overdose. He was only son. Went to a good school. Had the world and everything ahead of him. He’s gone now.

When is it the right time to let go?

I keep thinking of Ramiz from time to time. Since what happened a few weeks ago, I had to change things about what I said.

It means more than it should to me.

I had a fight again last night. I said things I should never have. Don’t know why I did.

I hope God doesn’t take it seriously, I didn’t mean any of it.

I still need to apologize for everything.

I can go to any grave.

Except the one where my family members are.

Passing by the Night – Photo Essay

I can’t believe I’m at this place again. Last year when we were going into the new year, I took a photograph of the last sunset. I hoped in that moment that maybe things would be different, that they would change, I would change, and maybe finally have a resolution.

Oddly enough, the opposite has been happening. Isn’t time supposed to change everything? And things have changed I just haven’t changed or evolved at the same pace.

Maybe I’m suffering from a generic kind of arrested development.

The same things that hurt me three years ago, are the things that are hurting me now. Shouldn’t that change, or is this the lope I’m stuck in. And I tend to end up in the same place, roaming the streets alone at night. The night changes everything. All these streets and buildings, all the lights and no sound. It’s just man-made space devoid or feeling and full of me, but that’s not something to be surprised of since I’m out at four in the morning and midnight.

But coming home and looking back , both at the roads and at time, I have to admit that things have changed. The kids are gone.

And that change that I thought would never come, or never felt was there, is finally shinning through my eyes.

It’s a big step.

It hurts.

But it’s here.

And there is nothing that I can do about it.

Could I go back and change things?

Was it something I did?

I feel like I did so much, and felt so much, and for what?

Can I go back and apologize to everyone? And replace the hurt and the damage?

Or continue to walk on into the night like nothing happened?

I’m always in awe and disturbance with time. I can never decide if it’s real. Last time I was out like this – aimless – timeless – I remember my friends saying all the things I already knew.

I was shaken. Moved to a point of offense but there wasn’t anything to protest.

I don’t protest at all. A girl should at least try, even if it changes nothing.

I’m still here. I wake up like it takes no energy. I break in tears when no one is watching.

I’m alive.

These look like how I feel. I walk through the cold, and my heart is full of nothing but hope and I see my future come up to me, while my past is limping in front of me.

Is all of this distress just because of the weather? Is that it ?

Everything is coming together. In the stillness of the night and the shadow of the dark it’s easy to think of the future. It’s easy to be hurt in the hurt, anything could happen, and no one would care.

But to venture out and visit the past, look out into the future, deal with those spirits that lurk in the streets and then come back having survived, having apologized, having changed. That’s the victory of the night.

Stories don’t change anything.

That’s what hurts me.

It breaks my heart.

I know why we tell stories. We tell them to ourselves, not other people. We tell them to find our solutions, our way to an escape from how we feel. To get away.

To throw out the blood that we don’t need anymore. No more.

This is isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way.

I’ve felt this way before.

I’m feeling it right now.

Of the future I am unsure.

I was so protected.

I am guarded.

I am still and strict in the smile.

My chin and shoulders are high.

My eyes are dead and in flames.

But my voice betrays me.

Sweet solitude.

Where do I go from the end?

Do you feel the same way?

Or the complete opposite?

Can I make you understand how I feel?

I come to them looking hungry for love, but when the glance is returned it’s trying to find a solution.

It’s love that I want – not promises.

Across the Night

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t matter where you turn

In this circle the spiral isn’t just around you

It’s the only thing that keeps you going

If it stops

The sun won’t come above your shoulders

Then again you’re blind

And what is the sound of a frowning face

I wonder how you must feel riding through the night

In this new, alien land, waiting for your dreams to come true

I see it all

The uneasy smile spread across your cheeks

That shines through the night

Shoulders tight towards your heart

I see it all

How pathetic and vulnerable you look

I could kill you now

But you won’t die

You won’t die

With that smile

Or those dreams

I’ll let you live long enough to fall asleep

That way they’ll spread in the air of the night

The lights will hits your lids

And the cold air will make you shiver

The fog will protect me

And the car will keep riding through the night

The night in which people hold hands to feel safe

Where the homeless share fires and tears

Where children lose their innocence to themselves

And the happy sleep like those cries, tears, sobs and broken bones don’t exist

Across the night

Everyone is asleep now

Even those in sleep

And in this city now asleep in splendor and pain

With the fire almost washed out by the unforgiving wind

My hands find their way up belly, through your chest, finally around your neck

My hands and knees begin to crush you

You’ll die now a dreaming fool unaware of the end

With muted gasps and uneven protests sleeping towards death

Just minutes away from the end

Your eyes blaze open

Even the blind can sometimes see

Don’t they?

Sometimes all ailments and blindness has to stop for the truth to live

And if you saw nothing else

You see me now

You see me

Hurting the last chance you ever had

Across the night

Your ghost will haunt the night

Across the night

Nightmares will invite your screams

Across the night

Your face will visible to the young

Across the night

Until the sun will wash you away

Away with it’s unforgiving gaze

 

 

 

My term paper on ‘Old Man and the Sea’

Hi everyone. Since all my grades are up for these subjects, I would like to post them here. These were all last-minute, sped up, desperate attempts to actually something good enough to be a term paper. I don’t feel like this is my best work, but hopefully my final thesis will be the best out of the whole class, and the most insightful thesis that the university has ever seen.

I’m going to turn heads and get awards just for that thesis. And make my family proud.

Plus please give me suggestions, critic and improvements tips.

 

 

 

 

American Novel (Term Paper)

The Old Man and the Sea

 

Name: Maheen Ahmed

Major: English Literature

 

Without a win: Tracing Nihilistic undertones and denial of failure within the

The overtones of positive Existentialism in ‘The Old Man and the Sea’

 

 

Introduction

‘The Old Man and the Sea’, is what projected Hemingway as a literary and masculine legend. It is a tale about an otherwise pathetic and insignificant sailor who has been unable to catch any fish but is determined to oppose the forces of nature, fulfill his hunting ambitions therefore becoming almost a biblical allegory for the defiant, heroic, ideal man who is be held as an example for positivity and greatness. It is under the consideration of several critics as a Moby-Dick adaption of ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, because it lives up to the ideals of existentialism for fighting and opposing meaninglessness.

This research paper looks to question those ideas of the novel reinforcing these notions, and instead focuses on the inversion of these philosophical concepts, which is apparent in Nihilism.

 

 

Literature Review

 

Existentialism and further branches of its theories have been applied to ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, and on its own the novel is a reflection of the life philosophy that Earnest Hemingway held important for young men, and people of grand ambition. He wrote the novel during a time in his career when he had a likeness to the protagonist of the story, and in its inception became a literary hero. The story has mythical, historical, social and political and of course existential traits, and readers and researchers have been able to see and feel different aspects of the uplifting mentality that people can defeat nature.

The majority of the research done on the novel, regarding existentialism has been conducted to agree with Hemingway’s sentiments. In that they are able to relate with and assure all the notions of being the ‘Supreme Being’ who has strength, in without loss, and is able to defy human needs for greatness.

In ‘Man’s Interaction with Himself in The Old Man and the Sea with a view of Existentialism’, the researcher points out the narrative of how the old man is able to transcend his woes and his condition, by focusing of Sarte’s ideas of being, which insists that man is responsible for everything that is capable of happening to him.

In ‘Navigating the Absurd: Camus, Hemingway, and the Sea’ by Stephanie, the essay talks about the likeness between Sisyphus and Santiago, reinforcing and recognizing a lack of ‘Bad Faith’ in the novel, and insisting that there is no ill will within the protagonist and how the novel is a tale of confrontation and slaying the inner dragon.

To continue the string of existential analysis papers, is Dwight Eddins paper, ‘Of Rocks and Marlin’, he literates that the negation of Santiago’s efforts being destroyed and hurt, and his remaining dignified is makes him an ‘island of human dignity’.

Lastly a research paper titled ‘Existence of Human being as reflected in Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ novel – an existential approach’, there is a discussion about the three levels of existential places of human existence, namely, ‘aesthetical, ethical and religious’ and how one may find of pin point them within the themes and characters in the novel.

Thus to conclude that the majority of work has been done on the positive side of the existential crisis, and there was rarely a mention of Nihilism. Nihilism is a the belief that there is no point in anything and that life is meaningless, and the aim of this paper is to see and find an argument that the novel and narrative need not be as hopeful as it has always been seen and analyzed.

This paper will trace out points that don’t agree with the philosophy of the previous research papers, and will not imagine Santiago happy.

 

 

 

 

Discussion and Analysis

 

‘The Old Man and the Sea’, starts at the failure of a sailor, who in the progression of the novel seems to have undergone a personal development or at least as a man who has proven himself and his worth to the reader and to the one boy he wishes to bond with, which would have one believe that this is a positive and inspirational tale, of a man beyond limits and reality. But then is that realistically how greatness is measured with the context of the time, and is this mindless will to capture and destroy the natural world really an image of spiritual and emotional transcendence.

The ‘Nothingness’ and ‘Meaninglessness’ of the character’s pathetic and hopeless existence is in his state in the novel, which is that of a low-class laborer, more a commodity to a consumerist society. He is described as poor, unlucky, old, alone, on welfare, unable to move on, and is fixated on a younger sailor who he himself fears to bring down with his bad luck. So the overall tone and mode around his is not of anything fulfilling on any level, he is without dignity, love and security all of which would suggest that he has very little to believe in and live for. So this grand heroic journey does not spring from self-determinism but from having nothing to live for or having something to ground him to the land, and put his life and health on the line. It would also explain his stubborn fixation with Manolin, whom he sees him own youth in, and is mentally obsessed with because he is one of the few people who actually cares for him, and he fears losing him. Therefore Santiago does not have any clear compass to self-worth but is doing his antics as an act of desperation and need.

 

“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

 

To compare Santiago with Jake from ‘The Sun Also Rises’, and with Hemingway himself, we notice an obsession and compulsion towards exerting manliness and an attraction towards stereotypically, manly ideals and a battle between different personas of men, and they Santiago would come under the category of the strong man who is not easy to control or defeat. But then why is this theme so consistent and one-sided. It can be argued that the reason all these male-centric characters are like this is because in face of some failures, they are trying to heavily compensate for something by acting out and using physical strength, instead of something material or societal to boost their egos. Santiago goes on this hunt because the people have provided him with a complex about not being able to catch fish. This can be related with how Jake has no issue with the woman he loves being with other younger men because he realizes that he lacks the ability to fully commit to a romantic relationship with her, and to the expense of his feelings and health he makes her wishes come true. So for both men their activity is derived out of insecurities and not some ideal of being a strong human, as Albert Camus would have the Greek heroes, who defied the gods. This realization steals the essence or impact of all the positive and idealistic thoughts of the sad sailor, it adds a bitter almost delusional taste to his thought like,

 

Now is no time to think of what you do not have.
Think of what you can do with that there is”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

 

Santiago can also be seen as someone who is in ‘denial’ of a lot of painful things, and depleting situations that he is in. The character is ashamed and bothered that he has been taken care of and have to take food from others just to survive. This hunt for the Marlin, therefore is a mid-life crisis and he trying to prove something to the world and to society at the expense of nature and not for the greater good of mankind, like Sisyphus who took the torture head on and also Prometheus. Santiago is in ‘denial’ of the fact that he must take care of himself, and that perhaps there is nothing wrong with being taken care of , he fears being powerless and out-of-control so controlling nature is symbolic of going against nature and aging itself. He is unable to accept this reality, so his mind and actions defend his psyche by bringing him to a near death situation, just to protect him from realizing that he has lost his youth, which would leave him to active pessimism. But he still has those dreams of the ‘Lions’, ‘White beaches’ and ‘Africa’, all of which he saw in his youth.

 

One major factor of Humanism and Existentialism is ‘Self-Actualization’ and being self –aware of one’s weakness and wanting to ‘Be’ and be better. But Santiago does not really change throughout the novel, his character does change or grow as much as the surroundings or the boy when he sees his hurt hands, and beyond that one must consider that Santiago is a senior citizen and as the saying goes, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’, so there is little possibility for change, development or having a positive view which is free of the horror and visualization of a Nihilistic ideals and reality.

Even in the way he views the natural world, he is continuously ‘projecting’ his internal hopes and calamities on to the animals, water and solar bodies. The natural world is not inspiring change, developmental or decency in him it is instead fueling his ‘passive nihilism’.

 

“It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

 

Further on his need to destroy things and kill things like a noble savage, is reminiscent of what Nietzsche believed of the meaningless soul. To him, the building up of a lack of morality makes men more destructive and feel a need  to capture or work without any consequences, but it is this destruction of all things that allows there a space for new life and change and innovative creation. So his killing of the fish is what sparks the climax and end of the personal guilt, he is released of his fire, but that does not mean that he has found himself or undergone anything spiritual, his duality is centered in animatistic and survival. And such environments for not ideal  for bringing something better to the table, Santiago would after killing the fish would be left with a feeling of the same nothingness, only now he will need to hunt more to feel that drive and high again.

 

Where most critics and theoretical papers see his battle and unwillingness to lose as authenticity and adversity, but based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Santiago is not in a position to work or act outside of paranoia and hunger and fear. His deprivation does not allow him to think or act well or in his senses. His being pulled into the sea by the strong fish is just a display of how powerless he is nature and the natural, but his insecurities and nihilistic existence is what compels him to hold on. Had he been living life to a certain standard he would not have anything to prove, and if had something to live for and something to channel his energy towards this destructive behavior would be unheard of, as happy, fulfilled people do not feel the need to move or change.

 

“My big fish must be somewhere.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

 

It is also significant to the idea of Nihilism that even with all his work and effort, by the end the sharks are able to destroy and eat away the Marlin, and this time he is unable to defy nature or be a grand human-being, and maybe this inability to change reality is what leads these absurdist heroes to be so strong in the face of defeat, is it enough for them that they tried? Or is this just their way of dealing with the loss and defeat, Santiago wanted that fish, he wanted and needed the big fish, so his eventual loss, might again just be ‘denial’ working to protect his feelings where his body and existence is broken.

 

To provide a counter argument one may agree with every previous paper on the matter and see the base level analysis of how determined and self-reliant Santiago is, he does give his all and his thoughts provide an air of magical realism which is kind of the masculine energy most male heroes are loved for, and it almost inspires the readers to actually want him to win, even if he fails in his own mind. Besides this protagonist and narrative is riddled with biblical references and allegories, so philosophy and science is secondary, as he is like a Christ like figure who wins in his defeat, and it was the journey and not the goal that strengthens him and his character. His pessimism is not as great or powerful an image as the blood on his hands, and that the boy is able to recognize his sacrifice, leaving the story as actually hopeful and inspiring.

 

Conclusion

To conclude it is just a point a perspective and actual analysis to be able to recognize the nihilistic discourse within the text, but that does not cancel or overturn the previous Existential research about the story. But to be able to see the story and character and struggle in its entirety is what will help further the research and understanding of a work of literature that embodies the human struggle either ethical or insane.

 

 

References:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/69741-the-old-man-and-the-sea?page=3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea

http://www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/574263bf71952.pdf

https://stanfordfreedomproject.com/multi-media-essays-on-freedom/navigating-the-absurd-camus-hemingway-and-the-sea/

https://www.iep.utm.edu/nihilism/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236749230_Of_Rocks_and_Marlin_The_Existentialist_Agon_in_Camus’s_The_Myth_of_Sisyphus_and_Hemingway’s_The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea

https://academyofideas.com/2012/11/active-and-passive-nihilism/

http://eprints.ums.ac.id/50601/14/PUBLICATION%20ARTICLE.pdf

https://www.slideshare.net/goswamigayatri/existentialism-in-the-old-man-and-the-sea-40214880

 

 

 

Looking back at Peter Rabbit

 

 

The ‘Tales of Peter Rabbit’ are a collection of short illustrated stories about a wild and farm animals who interact with each other natural enough to be real, but human enough to  be emotional.

For me the name alone reminds of the scene of a woman painting and then escaping the rain, to go home where she perhaps lives alone, where her pet rabbit Peter is waiting with her English tea. And as she paints the lightly water-color based art of the series comes in and her imagination comes to life.

The story had since its inception inspired or been enjoyed by thousands of children. I also grew up with a strange alienated attachment to those animals, especially the rabbits, but what makes the story  endearing and relevant? How does a show maintain its freshness, sensitivity and honest ambiance .

I feel like what makes the show good ( The original series) is that it was honest to the text, and for a kids story, it spoke about the well dressed danger that walks around the safe lines of life. There is intelligence and artistic beauty integrated so that the end product is almost paradoxical, to the point of enchanting an adult mind, while keeping the children entertained.

Even as an adult I still binge watch shows of this nature, that are typically targeted for children. I think what it does for mature minds is provide a vision into the space of beautiful chaos that once had in their lives, and they enjoy seeing a world that is full of evil and danger but has a clear compass that protects the good in its world. The lack of apparent complexity also helps makes the world more likable, for a while our fantasies of happy spaces can be real, or at least something to be seen.

I suppose the hyper-reality of the fictional is also something that eases the burden of truth for us as we see  danger that is not real. It more comfortable to feel and imagine because of the knowledge that it is fake.

But at the end of the day can the same claim be made for the minds and reception of children. Is beauty and movement enough for them, or is their understanding and demand of the balance between reality and magic the same as mature people, and they just don’t know how to fully express their feelings and feel more.

Either way I feel like Peter Rabbit is a treasure and a treat for its detail of animal like motion, human sentiment and British culture.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Potter

 

 

 

 

Watch “BJ Saqid ( Author) Interview” on YouTube

So as I was walking around with my friend Mina, so sort of came across a book launch for a book about Imran Khan.

BJ Saqid was the author, and he seemed like a very nice man, and he was polite enough to answer all of our questions regarding his book and his beliefs about the subject.

He also mentioned that he will be working on more publications, and we can’t wait to see them.

Please follow my YouTube channel.

I’ll be posting there more often.

Emily Dickinson’s relationship with Death

Hi everyone

This is my essay for my American poetry class. I got good reviews on it, and I think I did a good job, but I really want to improve my writing and analytical skills. So if you have any expertise, suggestions or remarks, be generous.

 

 

 

Emily Dickinson had a rather interesting relationship with death itself, and she acknowledged this throughout her life, that she was haunted by the ‘menace of death’.Her poetry has several accounts of her experiencing funerals and death takes on different forms and faces to communicate with her. This alludes to the establishment of a bond of finding solace and companionship with death.

One might suggest that it was the aversion she felt towards the futile existence of real life, that led her to crave death. For, she did make a constant effort to not experience a full life, or lead an existence like the others around her. She spent her life rarely leaving her room, communicating through closed doors, and she didn’t even her own fathers funeral down stairs. She never married, and only wore white. She lived not living a life of the common woman of that time.

She was indeed a prolific writer who expressed herself unlike anyone else in poetry, but even  her poems were a well-kept secret, discovered after her death by her sister. It is also important knowing that her room had a clear vision of a graveyard – and that her family had taken work as caretakers for funerals.

By this outline, one can easily see why the interest in death would develop, as it was all around her.

But death is not ugly,sad, terrifying or distasteful for her. in her narrations and poems, Dickinson is someone who is not a stranger to the face of death and death is often personified as someone she interacts with. She also experiences in full vision her own funeral without a peep of fear, regret or unease and even her descriptions of death are not filled with typical colors of black, purple , green or images of grit but all images come with easy emotions.

One may analyse that because her life was absent of catalysts that engaged her interest. She found activity  and stimulation in these thoughts of dying.

“Because I could not stop for death

He kindly stopped for me “

Death with its many faces is sometimes a friendly companion, a devil-like fly and also a lover. This could be an indication to the repressed feelings within her, as she could not physically digest the reality of those commitments in real life, she decided to have them in her imagination.

It is interesting for death to be her lover, because according to the psychoanalytical theory the desire not to die and to reproduce are what form a persons basic moving factors in all humans, but there is obviously an inversion of this concept  here. She is attached to the desire of dying and in it finds the place to create life. Maybe her poems are one of those creations of her love for death.

There is obviously no denial of death in her poems, as she bluntly mentions it. What one might suggest is that the constant occurrence of death might be an act of ‘sublimation’. Sublimation is a defense mechanism in which bad memories and feelings are  made uplifting and beautiful in order to ease the pain of those memories.  So her ordeal with death in her poetry is a way of dealing with the death of loved ones – a kind of therapy to ride her heart and mind of trauma.

“I could not see to see”

Compared with writers on the same topic, the death of women, or death in general her poems are very sensual, active and through the vivid and watching eyes of the dying soul.

Edgar Allen Poe would often write about the death of his wife, and in his poems, would mention her death body, which in a way objectified her. And the tragedy in his poems does not follow the death of his wife, but follows his loss and depression of the loss of her to him, and everything that he felt and saw.

“For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.”

And if one sees that through the waiting days of John Keats, one finds a sad man, waiting like a caged animal to meet death as something that he knows is coming, and there is no hope for him. So for Keats there is often that denial or exclusion of the body of death, and a focus on the beauty of what is felt, and an obsession of wanting to freeze time and be immortal through poetry and art.

“Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:

No god, no demon of severe response,

Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell.

Then to my human heart I turn at once-

Heart! thou and I are here sad and alone;

Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!”

 

All of which is not there in Emily Dickinson’s words, who is comfortable and at ease with the grim reaper. Her ‘voyeurism’ transcends the simple plot of dying, that one might say that because she an intellectual ahead of her time, she knew her thoughts would not be accepted in her polite, puritanical society.  She therefore exiled herself for her own safety.

And this becomes apparent in her poems ‘ I heard a fly buzz’, in which she is aware of the eyes watching her and how a small fly has blocked her vision. The fly is a symbol for the devil, because the people around her would believe she belonged to  hell. The devil is often called the lord of the flies and this fly denies her clear vision.

Vision, was something of great importance to her. The eyes  were a mirroring symbol for people, death is never watching her, death is becoming to her. In death she found her muse, lover,friend, foe and a canvas to express herself and everything inside her mind.

 

Further reading.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson

https://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Dickinson.html