Existence and Reminiscence

Within our sea of existence, we look back at the rippled waters of history, look at the current boat we sit upon, and look forward to the endless horizon. Memorials serve as a way to honor the past, be grateful for the present, and look forward to the future.
This week in class we discussed the many roles of memorials in remembering the fallen soldiers of costly wars. How memorials are presented have huge and lasting impacts on individual loved ones as well as the whole nation. For example, cenotaphs serve as a linear account of time, presenting events in chronological order without anachronisms. On the other hand, a memorial in the form of a book, such as Tim O'Brien's "The Things they Carried", can use nonlinear narratives and take liberty in presenting its accounts of war. Both serve as mediums to reminisce the past, but both have their fair share of advantages and disadvantages. Cenotaphs are unique artifacts in that they commemorate the bodies of soldiers who are forever "missing in action", and serve as "proxies for those bodies that were simultaneously absent and present, physically gone but stunningly felt in psychological and emotional terms" (Booth). They offer placeholders for the brave men and women who sacrificed their lives for the nation and give loved ones something to hold on to. On a more abstract level, nonlinear narratives like those of O'Brien's novel emphasize broader thinking and offer greater perspective on war, although they may not even be true. Nonetheless, both are very effective in guiding mourners and citizens of a nation from the past onward towards the future while making sure to reminisce the moment.

Comments

  1. EricSeptember 17, 2017 at 4:05 PM

    I liked the way you explained the differences in nonlinear narratives and linear narratives, and backed them up with examples such as cenotaphs and stories, such as in The Things They Carried. Perhaps more insight could be given into why each technique is effective, and how each one has its different advantages and disadvantages, using examples as evidence. Overall, good write.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sonja LisowskiSeptember 17, 2017 at 6:06 PM

    First I am going to say that I really appreciate the length of your blog entry. A lot of people's were very long and did not grab my attention. You though managed to get your thoughts in a rather short yet effective blurb. I do agree with Eric though, a little more insight on the topics instead of surface analysis would have made the entry more effective. Don't be afraid to spice up the work and personalize it!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Really Confident Girl

Image
The Fearless Girl is a powerful embodiment of the feminist movement. The young brave girl is a stark representation of the courage it takes to stand up for equal rights. However, the sole purpose of the girl was to serve as a counterpart to the Charging Bull, which is an "aggressive threat to women and girls - a symbol of patriarchal oppression”. If Di Modica really wanted to move his expensive masterpiece away from the attention-drawing girl, Fearless Girl would then become “really confident girl” as one author notices. But honestly, what’s wrong with that? Feminists have had to consistently prove themselves over and over throughout history. Wave after wave of feminists with slightly different agendas have had to take tiny yet monumental steps for women in order to be taken seriously. Now, in the 21st century, the role of feminism is already well established and very widespread. Feminists are making real change happen. So why do they feel the need to prove that they are bra
Read more

Bubbles!

Whenever you go to an ethnically foreign place, such as a restaurant or a market, you'll notice how the environment that surrounds you is contained within a very finite area - a bubble. The moment you walk in through a door, smells, sounds, sights, and all your senses are struck with the ruminated cultures of centuries of history, often from thousands of miles away. Specifically, the way people speak, the manner in which people address each other, the language that permeates the bubble, is subtly yet vastly different. What I mean is, unlike the very apparent "role playing, side-step, shilly-shally, and vagueness and innuendo" in the English language, my Chinese speaking family is one that does not partake in such mannerisms. English is  peculiar distinct distinctive idiosyncratic particular personal special specific  unique in that there are hundreds of substitutes or complimentary words that mean basically the same thing. Chinese, on the other hand is more direct, requir
Read more

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Call it what you want - totting, skipping, skip diving, skip salvage, curb shopping, trash picking or street scavenging - dumpster diving is just one of the names in that trash pile of labels. It’s not only a means of survival, but also a “way of life.” The show Extreme Cheapskates on TLC highlights some of the most frugal people in the world, who stop at nothing to save money. Sometimes these people aren’t even poor; they are just very tight penny-pinchers. Creating reusuable toilet paper, reusing dental floss, finding gifts in garbage cans, washing clothes while showering, flushing the toilet only once a week, making their own toothpaste, not spending money on telephones, television or new clothes for their kids is just some of the ludicrous extents people go to to conserve their bank accounts. So I ask you. At what point does extreme frugality become near-dumpster-diving conditions? Just because you don’t throw something away and reuse it, for example toilet paper, is it still consi
Read more