No Exit Notes+ Questions

NOTES:

Characters:
• Valet
• Garcin: He is in hell because he slept around with other women and did not pay much attention to his wife.
• Estelle: She killed/aborted her baby? Had interest in many men.
• Inez: She is a lesbian and was a very cruel person.

Hell:
• The room itself
• People are hell
• There is no physical torture, but the people give each other a hard time, they are each other’s hell.
• It is a room full of furniture and all door are locked
• No sleeping
• Pure light

The outside world:
• Each character could see what people in their past are doing on earth. It is part of the torture. They can see but cannot say anything.
• They suffer in silence while seeing the other person’s actions and how they talk about them (the dead ones).

Lust:
• Estelle desires Garcin.
• They are planning to make love in front of Inez.
• Inez convinces Garcin not to. She tells him that Estelle is lying to him and only telling him what he want to hear and not the truth.
• They have various arguments
• Estelle and Garcin try to escape and kick Inez out, but that fails.


Thoughts:
• Light = awareness
• Contradictory: light in a room where no one is able to escape. How does the light portray awareness and knowledge in a place where people are damned?
• Can the characters really see what is going on in the world even though they are in hell?


TEXT QUESTIONS:


1.Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment? Enter Sartre's space more fully and imagine how it would feel to live there endlessly, night and day:
The hell I have chosen is similar to Dante’s inferno. It is a place without any disguise. I believe the mind can be in hell in a beautiful place. The mind works in such ways that it can easily ruin the mood you are in with the constant thinking it does. It can be your worst enemy no matter if you are in the most beautiful place on earth. Just like you can find hell in a beautiful place you can find peace in a hellish place. You use the mind to your advantage. Sartre’s space seems like a fancy place to be in. If I was stuck in that room I would find a way to keep myself sane though I do not guarantee staying sane.

2.Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous sex?
Hell can be described as too much of something without a break. I believe it is too much suffering without a break, too much burning without a break, etc. Hell is definitely a place in which everything happens without a break.

3.How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?

Sartre allows the reader to experience the place by the way Garcin is speaking and asking questions frantically. You get a sense that the place is torture itself. Lately I have not gotten much sleep. When this happens my eyes feel swollen, I am bit grumpy and not in the mood for many things. That alone is hell I do not know what not sleeping at all would be called. Daily activities like going to certain classes everyday, or doing chores, or waking up early or doing homework could easily be interpreted as hell. I have heard conversations in which I hear that a certain class was hell or a test or final was hell etc. When calling something hell people mean that the work or situation was a drag, time consuming, difficult, uncomfortable, etc.

Think about it

What motivates you?
What allows you to keep going when you are tired and worn out and just done with everything? Is it the cups of coffee or is it the fire inside of you? Is it for your parent's satisfaction or is it for your benefit? Why do you do what you do?
Just sit down, stop what you are doing and think about these questions. You might be surprised for whom and why you are doing what you are doing?

Thoughts on “What Makes a Hero?”

"Was carrying out one transcendent, self-abnegating act the only way to achieve heroic status? Or could you assemble a heroic identity like a puzzle, piece by piece, over time?"

transcendent: beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience

self-abnegating: the denial of one's own interest in favor of the interests of others

In other words: Is doing something extraordinary and self-less the only way to become a hero or can you create a heroic identity step by step?

To be a hero, "historically, you have to have some special skill that goes above and beyond what ordinary people have. That's a leftover from our distant past," Franco says. "We've moved form that position. What we're saying is that ANYONE can be a hero."

I believe that hero does not really know he is a hero until someone points it out to them. A hero does not have to be some super power, magical person. To me a hero is assembled piece by piece, some are assembled better than others and some are not assembled at all, but bottom line is that anyone can become a hero. 

How exciting! :)

Good luck on becoming a hero! 

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SONNET

The Allegory of the cave, my eyes did open
The prisoner seemed like you and I
until we became outspoken
they stayed in the cave instead of saying goodbye

It was not their fault, that was their normal
but we refuse to be trapped
for that is infernal
poor prisoners for they were blacked

The dark cave, ignorance it was
the restraining shackles
but still they did not buzz
it was a battle

A battle between fear of the unknown and what is known
but  knowledge, we decided, we could not let go.

BRAIN WITH [8] LEGS

Izamar, Miranda, Nakesha and I are going to be reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

We plan on reading 40 pages a night to be done by December 1st.

We also plan on creating a separate blog for our conversations and discussions on the novel.
Our blog should be up and running by this friday. On the blog we will include our summaries, what we understood and what we did not, questions and anything that helps us understand the text better.

Don’t drown in your selfishness

There is no them

There is no me 

but

There is us. 

David Foster Wallace’s question is engraved in my head; What is water? As I think about this question I think of living an aware, educated and compassionate life. If we could stop being so wrapped up in our own worlds and paused to think about water and what it is we would live in a much more humane, just and compassionate world.

Water is what we live in, it is the norm therefore many stare blankly when asked what is water? To become better people we must know what water is. We must be aware, compassionate and selfless. We should be able to pause and lend a helping hand, a good ear, and/or a warm comment.

I firmly believe that we will not be able to know what water is until we are conscious of others and their lives. I am very disturbed by the fact that some of us can get through our day with out asking how are you? Can I do something for you?  Or Are you okay? It is quite ridiculous how little time we spent trying to understand other’s lives. That is not our job, but that does not mean we should not take some time to do so.

There is no you.

There is no me.

There is us.

And 

This is water. 

DON’T DROWN IN YOUR SELFISHNESS. 

What a great way to spread germs :)