The Adventures of Ulysses: book blog 3

After Ulysses and company defeated the Trojans, they set sail for Ithaca bearing the treasures of Troy. While they were putting everything on the ship Ulysses asks for a song to be played and sung, he wished for a merry song. And so the crew started singing a song that asked Poseidon for a safe journey home. Once they started sailing back everything was smooth sailing until they saw a small dark cloud directly over the ship. It put slight unease on Ulysses and a few of the other crew members, but everyone else didn't notice it. The cloud gradually grew and as it grew more of the crew started to get nervous about if they had offended Poseidon or not. Pretty soon the cloud had stretched across the sky and the sun was no longer visible. Ulysses gave the orders to pull up the sails and switch to oars, but they were too late, the storm had started before they were able to complete the safety protocols. During the storm seventy two men were thrown off of the fleet of ships. Ulysses and company make it to a mysterious island in the south, they see smoke rising from the island and hope that people are there.

This part of the book is very slow moving, and the story seems a bit choppy here, like they were trying to rush the story along. I don't know why the author couldn't have just written a few paragraphs about the storm, I honestly feel that including all of the detail about it was unnecessary. But that's just my opinion.

Mid-Summer's Night Dream Question # 4

In Mid-Summer's Night Dream the females seem to have significantly less freedoms than the males. They are treated as property to the 'man of the house' and have to do as the males say, as stated in the Athenian laws. The women also seem to not have the ability to choose their husbands while they remain in Athens, their husbands are chosen for them by their parents or their parents have to approve of the marriage to allow the daughter to marry. This is proven when Egeus stated that Hermia was to marry Demetrius against her will simply because her father stated that they were to be married. It was obvious that she didn't love Demetrius but she did love Lysander, and she begged her father to allow her to marry Lysander. They even went to Theseus, the ruler of Athens and the wisest person around, to help them solve the problem of the marriage. Theseus stated that she could either marry Demetrius or become a nun. This proves that women had no choice about who they could marry and it also shows the restricted rights that women had.

In today's society women have more freedom than the women in Shakespearean times. Women are allowed to choose who they can marry and date, and women are treated as people, not property. But there is still gender inequality, women are paid less to do the same jobs as men, and in some cases women aren't even allowed to do the same job. Often, men still think that they are superior to women and try to establish their ideas firmly into the minds of those around them. Many times workplaces take into account the gender of the person that wishes to apply for the job and shifts their thoughts of hiring the person according to whether they are male or female. No, it is not fair. No, it is not right. Yes, it does happen. Even some people's thoughts of women make it sound like men are superior. Some people think that women are weak, frail beings, when the reality is that women and men are quite similar in stature, except for the fact that men are taller and some look tougher than women. Males and females should be considered equal, and in some cases they are. But thankfully women are no longer considered property like in Mid-Summer's Night Dream.

The Adventures of Ulysses: book blog 2

Ten years after Ulysses defeated the boar he became the king of Ithaca and obtained a wife. Some of his friends who are rulers of nearby countries have sought him out to seek help. The wife of one of them had been stolen. At first he politely refused to attend the war that was about to start between them and Troy, but after the war had been put into perspective for Ulysses, he agreed to fight. The war continued for ten years until Ulysses finally had the idea to build a giant hollow horse to give to the Trojans as a 'white flag' of surrender. Once the Trojans found the horse, they brought it back to their guarded country and celebrated their victory. Once the Trojans fell asleep, Ulysses and his men left the hollow horse and attacked all of the Trojans by surprise. All of the male descendants of the previous king of Troy were slaughtered, as well as most of everyone else. Ulsses, his soldiers, and his friends looted Troy and proceeded to leave to return to Ithaca.

Reading this part of the story and about this made me wonder why they would go on this journey and fight for ten years to get back someone who was most likely deceased. After the battle was over the story never said that they got the wife back, only that the Ithicans had won the war against the Trojans. I am rather confused about this part in the story.

The Adventures of Ulysses: Blog 1

The book starts off telling a small bit about the Gods and Goddesses in Greek mythology it also tells of the heroes, namely the mighty king of Ithaca, Ulysses. When the tale begins it speaks of a twelve year old Ulysses that it boar hunting. The book mentions his red hair, firm build, and king-like posture. Ulysses is mentioned to be sitting by a small lake, watching a menacing boar while his weapon rests on the other side of the body of water. When the creature rushes to attack him, he quickly jumps into the shallow lake and wades across to get his weapon. On his way across the boar slashes Ulyses' leg with his tusk, just above the knee. Ulysses, now bleeding quite a bit, threw his tunic at the furious boar to buy a little time to grab his spear. A battle rages for a short time period between Ulysses and the boar. Once the battle is over, Ulysses was crowned victor and then he brought the boar back to the city for food and as a trophy. His uncle, cousins, and grandfather were there to prove that Ulysses had truly slain the boar, they were hiding in the bushes while he fought though.

The beginning of the book seems simple enough, Ulysses is the prince of Ithaca, he was far from home so that he could visit  the rest of his family and go boar hunting. What I don't understand is why their family would be so far apart. His cousins and uncle live in Athens but he and his father live in Ithaca. It just seems odd to me.

Which World is Worse?

In my personal opinion I believe that the society in 1984 is most ominous. This is due to the government watching every move of every person in that society. In 1984 it seemed like everyone was scared to move because they thought something bad was going to happen to them. The people were also not allowed to think freely, as a mostly quiet person with loud thoughts and a large imagination, I would fear this society the most society the most because people were sent to be tortured if they had one thought out of line. I would hate the fear that came with imagination because I would know that I would be punished for using it. The only thing that keeps me mostly sane is my imagination and many thoughts, if someone took away my right to think freely I would no longer have a shred of sanity left. I believe that this wouldn't be as bad in Brave New World because the people there could think freely and for themselves, but they were encouraged not to for the "safety" of their happiness.

Media essay

    A World Without Media
   

    A world without media would not be a better and safer place. In a world without media, the world would be completely different. There would be no billboards, no commercials, no posters, no magazines, and no advertising. Many of you are probably thinking that this might be a good thing, but it wouldn’t be. You have to remember that media gives us knowledge, even if it’s just simple facts, like knowing that McDonald’s serves tea. Without media influence we wouldn’t know much of what we know currently, people wouldn’t have as much individuality, or creativity. News would also have to be transported by people or letters.

    In a world where there is no media influence, people wouldn’t have inspiration to make new things or have new ideas. Most ideas that people have come from magazines, commercials, or other forms of advertisement. People think of the colours and pictures from magazines or posters and form thoughts and ideas of their own. Many people have very little imagination or no imagination at all, and think of a good idea after they get inspiration from a picture in a magazine or on a poster. The theory of otherworldly beings would never have been popular if scientists hadn’t advertised their ideas about them, and producers making movies about the beings coming to Earth. If there was no media, society would not know about otherworldly beings. Even in books media is important, many books describe propaganda in the world around them. In Phantom of the Opera, the author describes the posters that advertise the Opera House and the people singing in the opera. Without commercials and advertising, the world would be much more dull.

    In today’s society, most of the world is on some sort of social media website, if all of that were to disappear, then many of the people today would go insane or be antisocial. Being social is important in the growth and development of today’s youth, however, the way to be social in the minds of teenagers and children today is to be on facebook or twitter. If the social media websites were to shut down completely, this generation wouldn’t know what to do to be around friends. They wouldn’t think to call and ask to go to the mall or see a movie, they also wouldn’t be able to share pictures or show support to something if they didn’t have a facebook or twitter. You may think that getting rid of facebook or twitter would be a good thing, however, today's youth has been born into a world of technology. Taking that away from a large group of people who have been born into it, would be madness, there would be riots from the young adults and teenagers who have had a huge  part of their life taken from them.

    The media also gives people the news to see if any dangers are near them. Without the news, people wouldn’t know if a hurricane or tornado is headed toward them as quickly. The news tells also tells people about tragedies and problems that are happening in the world, people wouldn’t be able to show support of something unless they were told directly. People wouldn’t know about Malala, the girl fighting in her country for the right to an education, we wouldn’t know that she was shot by the Taliban, and  we wouldn’t know about

the tragic event in Connecticut, we wouldn’t even know about the wars our country is currently fighting in.

    So now you can see that if we no longer had media we would not be better off. Sure, we wouldn’t have cyber bullying, but is that an even price for having no media at all? If we had no media, we would have less creativity, news would travel slower, and people would be less social. If media were to disappear, news would travel much more slowly and far less accurately.