Fatelessness: Critics to the past

Fatelessness, by Imre Kertész is a literary work that doesn't just describe the society of those times, but portrays life in Europe, specially as a jew in countries under the influence and control of the German Reich, and  as stated in the task, he criticises it. The author of this novel uses Gyuri, the protagonist, to show us how the war and the german's ambitious plans affected jewish families.

First of all, this novel was written in 1975, a long time after the world war II. Imre Kertész is a survivor of the holocaust, and by knowing this and a few details of his life, for example that he was from Budapest, we can infer that it is an autobiographical novel. In other words, Gyuri is a projection of Kertész's life. By knowing this, we already know the context of the story, which will be one of the main topics in this essay.

I think Kertész uses different methods to show us how irrational, or in simpler words, how terrible the society was at those times, specially against jews. But there are also some other methods that he doesn't use, like hyperbole. When he is describing the environment where he is placed, I think it may be accurate to what it really was instead of an exaggerated definition. For example, in the following quote: "QUOTE". This represents his writing style, it is realistic, because it is based on real events, this meaning the language, the characters and the setting is realistic too.

In the novel, we expect Gyuri to completely dislike the concentration camps and its unfairness, cruelty and other negligible qualities. But he doesn't, in different occasions he states that he likes concentration camps, mostly when he is in Buchenwald. For example in the following quote: "It is fair to say that I too soon came to like Buchenwald." It is interesting because in his "other life", he never gave us any clues that he didn't like it, so the question is: Why would he like the concentration camps where his people and himself are being enslaved and killed? I think there are many answers to this question, but probably it is a way of neglecting them, because as we know, he doesn't feel part of his culture, so maybe as a teenager he tries to be rebellious, or to fit somewhere by going against them because to fit somewhere, you must be part of the popular group, and jews weren't exactly the popular group. On the other side, there is also the fact that Gyuri didn't really know everything about the camps when he said this. He had only heard rumors about the gas chambers, but he never saw them. So maybe he just liked the simplicity of life inside the concentration camps.

Now, going back to the question, I think the author makes an implicit critic by setting Gyuri with that point of view, because basically he may be telling us how people who "weren't jewish" didn't understand how the discrimination of the minorities felt, or how the ones who are different, are constantly discriminated, for example when his jewish partners told him "You are not a jew", so in the end it's a general critic against discrimination of the ones who are different.

Starting another point, in the novel, when he was being annoyed by fleas, he just gave up and let them be there. "After a while, indeed I gave up and just watched the gluttony, the teeming, the voracity, the appetite, the unconcealed happiness; in a manner of speaking, it was as though it were vaguely familiar to me from somewhere". This quote can be analyzed in many aspects. First I'll start with figures of speech and rhetorical devices. As we can see, the author uses different figures of speech through the text, and in this case, he uses a pleonasm, this means he uses different words with the same meaning to emphasize what he is trying to say, "gluttony, teeming, voracity, appetite" they are synonyms and he is trying to give us a picture of how disgusting and "wild" it must've been to feel them eating your skin. Also, there is an irony when he says that the fleas eating him, was vaguely familiar to him. It's obvious that it's familiar to him because he is starving, in terrible conditions and he understands the fleas, he gives up because he feels the same thing they do, and no longer worries. As we could see with this quote, the author's writing style has long detailed descriptions, and as I pointed out before, he doesn't exaggerate using hyperbole, but he uses other figures of speech, like pleonasm, to help us get a better image of what he is describing.

With the same quote, I can explain the narration of the novel. It was written in first person, and the narrator is Gyuri. As the narrator, he tells us from his own experience what happened, what he saw, what he thought, which enriches the novel because it makes us feel "close" to the narrator, it makes the reader, for example,  feel empathy when his leg was being eaten by fleas.

For my last point, I'm going to refer to smoker who was another teenager who was in the concentration camp. "I once asked him what he found so great about smoking so much, to which he replied "it's cheaper than food"" I think that in this quote there are two critics present. First, he criticizes the war, because during war there are difficulties to get supplies, people starve due to increases in the price of food. And second, if we relate it with the beginning of the book, where thef allowing quote is: "It is well known in the neighborhood that he could not abide jews. That was also why the bread he pushed at me was a good half pound short." Again, we can see discrimination which made it difficult for the jews to get food.

As it can be seen in the quotes I chose, the author uses indirect narration, because he is just telling the story for the sake of it. He isn't aware that the reader exists, who becomes a witness to what's happening in the story. This causes a particular effect on the reader because, indirect narration doesn't make us feel part of the story and what the narrator is telling us, but first person narrator, as I said before makes us feel part of the story, like if we were inside Gyuri's head, hearing every thought and experiencing the same things he is.

In conclusion, the book is a critic to society, specifically to the society of the 1930's-1940's. The context here is important because it refers to discrimination and poverty which the war caused. It is also giving a message to the world, because it shows that war only ends in disgraces. That's why I think this book is an important representative and critic to world war II.

Fatelessness chapter 1 questions

1.  What characters are introduced in this chapter?

 Gyuri, Mr. Sütó, the baker,  Gyuri's father and stepmother, his grandparents, uncle Willy, Uncle Lajos, Uncle Steiner, and Uncle Fleischmann.

2. Choose two characters and select a quote to describe them physically or psychologically.

The following quote describes uncle Willie perfectly: "His head is pear shaped, broad, bulging, and bald on top, but narrowing at the cheeks and toward the chin".

 And this other quote describes Gyuri's stepmother's mama: "She has a narrow, sallow face, enormous dark eyes, and two withered flaps of skin dangling from her neck, which gives her the appearence of a very alert, discerning hunting dog"

3. What is the narrative technique? Provide evidence

• Point of view: the narrator is Gyuri, a 15 year old teenager, who is the protagonist of this novel. This meaning that it is a first person narration. An example of this is: "U didn't head home but to our shop. Father had said they would wait for me there". Having this point of view has both its benefits and disadvantages. As the good side of this narration we could say that it gives us the point of view of the main character, who's the one that we mostly care about. As a disadvantage, we could say that it only gives us a limited view of the events compared to an omniscient narrator that will know everything about everyone. Another advantage is that we get to feel like part of the story, and it is even more valuable when it is being told to us by the protagonist.
• Narrative: Indirect, he is telling the story for the sake of it. He isn't aware that he is telling the story to an audience, in this case us. He is just retelling it. ("We were already on the upper floor when it occurred to my stepmother that she had forgotten to redeem the bread coupon. I had to go back to the baker's.") As it can be seen, the narrator is telling us the story without directly telling it to us but to an absent audience.
• Speech: Reported speech, since the narrator summarizes the events, and retells them to us. "We were already on the upper floor when it occurred to my stepmother that she had forgotten to redeem the bread coupon. I had to go back to the baker's."
• Tense: Past tense "I didn't go to school today". He is retelling us the events that already happened.

4. Describe the setting of this chapter

This chapter takes place in Budapest, Hungary. It's in the WWII context, and all of the characters in the chapter are living it's consequences. Both by their status in the society as Jews, and/or by the different air raids, etc.

Written Task V.2

RATIONALE

For this written task I wrote an opinion article, about how Arthur Radley lived during his lock down inside his house, and about a fictional case I created based on “To kill a Mockingbird”, a novel by Harper Lee, where Arthur Radley supposedly killed his family and himself.

I wrote my opinion article with a serious tone because I am talking about a serious event, murder. So I think it is the best way to approach to the topic.

The purposes of my text are to show Arthur’s living conditions, not according to what the book says, but according to what I think they might be like. Also to show my opinion about Arthur and the fictional event I created, and at the same time reveal facts about how I think his personality is, trying to relate everything with events that happened the book.

My objective for this written task was to be as clear as possible, so my ideas could be easily understood. Also that my point of view could be easily recognized in the text, to be able to persuade my audience that Arthur was innocent and that his father, and after his death his brother, were both terrible tyrants to him.

TEXT

“Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them”. This was found written on one of the Radley house walls.

Everyone in Maycomb County knows that the Radley family was found dead in the Radley house a week ago, and that it has been a controversial topic since then. I am not saying it should not be this way, it certainly is a shocking event that deserves people’s attention, but the problem is that the judgmental inhabitants from this town blame Arthur Radley for this murder, and I think he is innocent. That is why I will show everyone how he lived, how was his relation to Maycomb county, and why I think he is innocent.

            About three days ago, I was able to visit the crime scene, and I found something very interesting. More than ten diaries written by Arthur Radley himself. He started writing them when his father locked him in the house, and he never stopped writing until his death.

            While I was reading, I started to question myself, why would he kill his own family? In his diaries he admitted that he used to be a “misguided” teenager when he started meeting up with the Ewells, he admits it was a bad idea, and that he should have been punished, but that he would rather be punished by the state than by his father because the state would not have sentenced a teenager to a life in prison. So he definitely had reasons to murder his family because he must have been angry, they deprived him from his freedom. It is an aberration, anyone who does that to his son clearly does not love him like a parent should. He was a tyrant who treated him as a criminal in a prison.

            First, let me tell you how he lived. His father was a tyrant that locked him up inside the house, everyone knows that, but no one had ever entered the house until now. What I saw was a normal house; they had a living room, bathrooms, a kitchen, normal things anyone with a stable economic situation in the 1930’s would have. But in their basement, there was another room, where I found the diaries that Arthur had written. In it, there were a few blankets and chains; they looked like they were used to keep someone from leaving the room. It was gloomy inside, the smell was putrid, and the image of someone sleeping tied up in there was creepy. The atmosphere of the room made me realize how cruel they were to him because it was already cruel enough that he was locked inside his house for all this time, but it is even worse that it was under these living conditions.

            Now that I have described how he lived, I will tell you a few things about the diaries. He described that every time his father or Nathan would leave the house they locked him in the basement and chained him to the floor. He would stay there with no possibility of leaving or going outside, they told him they were ashamed of him and that they did not want anyone looking at him because they would be even more embarrassed.  Eventually he learnt how to untie himself, and when they left, he would be able to walk freely inside the house. He never dared to leave, he just did it a few times, and they were special occasions, in his diaries he said he only went out to help three kids from the town, and to leave them some gifts inside a tree, which was sealed when his brother realized what he was doing, he took away his only way of having a life outside of the house. He would take every precaution possible to avoid being seen because if anyone saw him outside his father would know, probably Miss Stephanie Crawford would have told him, because she was such a gossipy person.

            Arthur Radley wrote in his diaries about three kids that had a special interest in him. He would spend hours in the window watching them as they ran in his house’s front yard, or played a game that apparently was inspired in him. He wrote about how the kids were too scared to go anywhere close to the house, and that it took one of the kids, the oldest of the them, a lot of time to run and touch the house, and after that go back to his friends before anything happened to him. “It is what rumors do” explained Arthur in his diary entry. In their game, they would role play about Arthur’s life, specifically the different events that Miss Stephanie Crawford told everyone about; for example that he stabbed his father in the leg or that he escaped during the nights to scare people from their windows. He thought it was quite interesting, he enjoyed watching them, and he would often laugh, he could be happy at least for a while. For example, he wrote about one time that the little girl was inside a tire, and she rolled inside the house’s yard, when she realized where she was, she was so scared that she even left the tire behind and desperately ran to back to his friends. She even made one of the go back for the tire. He laughed so hard, that he thought the girl might have listened to him. I think these things made him feel important, and that he was as curious about these kids as they were curious about him.

Now, let’s talk about his reputation in Maycomb county. Everyone knew who he was, some people spread rumors about them, some of them I have already talked about, like stabbing his father, etc. Miss Stephanie Crawford was the main “spreader” of these rumors, it sounds absurd, but Miss Stephanie really spread all this nonsense, and apparently everyone believed it. Arthur said it was all part of his father’s plan to keep him isolated, he would tell Miss Stephanie some lies and after that she would just do what she did best, tell it to everyone, then no one would want to see him because they would be afraid of him. Again, his father has taken something away from his son, the opportunity to socialize if he ever got out because everyone would be too scared to try and talk to him after hearing what he supposedly did.

And finally, what seemed odd to me. In the crime scene Nathan Radley, Arthur Radley and their mother, were in the same room, Arthur and his mother were stabbed several times, but Nathan was stabbed only once. Also the only one with blood in his hands was Nathan. How could Arthur have stabbed both of them and be completely clean? Why was Nathan only stabbed once? Clearly because he did it. I think I have proven how cruel this family can be, and that people like Nathan and his father can be capable of anything. Even of locking Arthur in a room with terrible conditions, and why not? of killing everyone in the family.

To Kill a Mockingbird Historical Context (Task4)

Author	Subject	Mood	Title
Bessie Smith	Great Depression	Melancolic	Nobody Knows When You're Down And Out
Big Bill Broonzy	Racism	Feels discriminated	Black, Brown and White
Lead Belly	Jim Crow	Protest	Jim Crow Blues
Bessie Smith	Loneliness	Sadness	I ant got nobody
Big Bill Broonzy	Overworking(slavery?)	Hopelessness	Sixteen Tons

Harper Lee questions

• When was she born?: April 28, 1926
• Where did she live? Monroeville, Alabama.
• What did her father do? Her father was a lawyer and a newspaper editor.

•  What is the cultural and educational background of the author? Since the beginning of her life she has been surrounded by a racist environment, racism was much "stronger" during those years, compared with the society now. But still there is racism in the world, it hasn't disappeared.

She studied in alabama, she started studying laws like her father but she didn't finish because she wanted to be a writer. She also studied at the oxford university.

• What are the values and aesthetic concerns of the culture of the author (literature movement, cultural movement, society of that time, etc)?  Society in that time had a strong racial "hate", in other words most of them were racists or at least they apparently were, her father defended two racially discriminated persons, because of their skin color, they were both killed. I think things like this could've made her realize that it wasn't right to discriminate people for their race, or any other aspect of their lives, so she might have gained social consciousness by being surrounded with all these things.
• What important social, political or economic issues took place in the author’s times? Racial discrimination, especially in the south of the united states.

• Do you think that her childhood is reflected on the book? It might be, haven't read it yet.

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was a famous English writer in the twentieth century. She wrote books like Orlando(1928) and Mrs. Dalloway(1925). She also was a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.

Throughout her life she had different events that caused mental breakdowns, not just one, many produced by different life changing events, like deaths of her mom, dad and siblings. She even included some terms the doctors that were treating her used to describe her mental illness in her book Mrs. Dalloway (1925).

Virginia Woolf was a feminist, she even wrote about how women were excluded from some rights that men had, for example education at a university. In To the Light House (1927) she recreated her parents marriage and its inequality (men is superior in the relationship). As we can see, Woolf wrote a lot about things related with her life, as I just mentioned she was a feminist, so she wrote about her parents marriage inequality, she had a mental illness and she wrote a book using the same terms they used to describe her.

She was a Modernist writer at some point, modernism was a predominant genre during the 20th century, specifically until 1960s. Modernism was a self conscious break with the past, a search for new forms of expression. People no longer believed institutions were reliable, so they just trusted themselves, there was a break with traditions, all things are relative, concern with the subconsciuos etc. WW1 became one of the catalysts of this movement due to the damage it did, and how humans killed humans (stopped believing in institutions because they taught them what they know, and suddenly humans were killing each other because of them). Virginia Woolf wrote about modernism in To the light house (1927), it strays from conventional forms focusing on stream of consciousness.

Finally, she suicided walking into river Ouse with stones in her pockets, due to a new mental breakdown which she didn't believe she could handle. Virginia Woolf was a writer with her own ideals, and experiences which apparently made her writing really interesting.

Martin Luther King an example for our society

"I have a dream", is a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. It was delivered on August 28 in 1963 at the Lincoln memorial.

This speech is considered one of the best speeches from the 20th century, it demands racial justice and it gives different images of a "perfect world" where everyone can live together in peace. It also helps us to understand how their society feels, and their resentment after hundreds of years being discriminated.

This speech is effective because he believes in equality, one of the main topics in the speech, and he sounds confident of the values he talks about in his speech.

In the speech he also uses different rhetorical devices and persuasive techniques that help to construct a credible speech, for example "But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity." In this quote he uses repetition, he repeats "One hundred years" twice in the same paragraph, the effect this causes is to emphasize that it has been a long time, and the negro is still discriminated. He also uses a metaphor, "the life of the negro is still crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination." to compare their lives to a horrible condemn, where they are constantly discriminated and segregated from the society.

Things like this examples can be seen through all the speech, and they have a powerful effect on the people that hear them.

It is a shame that things like discriminating people for their skin color has happened and it is even worse that it still happens, when humans are supposed to "evolve" and make progress as a society. But it is better that there are humans like Martin Luther King that are trying to do something about this things, I think people with his point of view are necessary for our society. That is why I also think this is one of the best speeches of the 20th century, besides, it is also well structured and achieves its goal.