Lust

     This past week we began our Dante's Inferno projects. I chose canto 5, which is lust.  In this canto, Dante and Virgil descend into the second circle of hell. The second circle is smaller than the first but has greater punishments. When Dante and Virgil get to the gate, the monster Minos warns Dante to not go inside, but they do anyways. Minos is the guard who assigns souls to their punishment/level in hell they will be going to. It's hurricane-like in there, with horrible winds and rains never failing to stop. Dante asks Virgil who some of the souls in there are, and learns that Helen (whom the Trojan War was fought for), Cleopatra, and a woman named Francesca are a couple of the ones identified. Dante feels sympathy for them, and asks them about their stories. Dante is overcome with pity, and he faints.
     I'm not exactly sure why I chose this specific canto, it just seemed to be far more interesting than hypocrisy (for example). I feel like being damned by love is a quite horrible reason to be damned. I don't really agree with Dante on sending all of these people to hell. I don't understand why they have to be damned for eternity for something as crazy and wild as love/lust. It makes me wonder what personal experience could Dante have had to make him go so sour on the issue. Overall, Dante's Inferno is proving to be a very interesting poem.

Oh, Hell

     What is hell? Hell (to me) has always been just an idea. An illusion, almost...something to get people scared. However, there are punishments for horrible actions. To me, hell is in a way a part of karma. I believe in reincarnation, so if you were a bad person in this life, you're surely not going to become a beautiful butterfly in your next life. That's not to say I don't believe in second chances, because I do. I've come to a conclusion with myself that everybody, no matter what their sin or crime, should always get a second chance. Of course they must be punished, but anybody can change for the better if you believe in them.
     To get into my "hell", there is a wide array of things you might have done. The idiotic celebrities who couldn't care less about anybody "beneath them", the "mean girls" at school, and in general anybody with an overabundance of arrogance are all going to hell. Next, drug junkies thieves, and people of that nature are going to be paying a visit to hell as well. Lastly, and quite obviously, killers and rapists will most likely be tortured by my merciless and symbolic hell. There are always cases where a human is killed, but the killer is not necessarily a killer, and exceptions will be made.
     In my opinion, the punishment should always fit the crime. I think somebody should always be able to redeem themselves. But of course there needs to be a punishment. For the arrogant bullies of society, their punishments will go something along the lines of living in their victim's shoes. Every minute, every second that they made somebody else suffer, they will be forced to experience the same thing. For the hard drug addicts, they will be forced to see what it's like to experience such intense and horrible withdrawals that they'll wish they had gotten some form of help sooner. Lastly, the killers and rapists of the innocent will be haunted so fiercely of their victims, and they will be forced to experience the pain and torture they dealt out themselves. As a believer in reincarnation, their next life on Earth won't be a pleasant one, but they will have learned from their horrendous mistakes.
     My particular hell is not so much of a visual image as it is a mental image. Imagine a demon assigned to every soul who somehow wound up in hell. Each demon has the duty of making sure the soul has served its punishment, never, ever resting. Hell isn't a black pit, but this dizzying craze of some kind of warped universe in your mind, all happening the second you die. It all ends the second you die, too, so you can move on with the process of reincarnation (however that may work). Time works differently in hell; it doesn't matter how long it seems for you to complete your punishment because it could be eternity or a day and in reality it would all be over in a second flat.
     If "escaping hell" meant being able to move on some time, then yes, it would be possible to escape my hell. However, like stated before, you would have to serve your entire punishment, and depending on your crime/sin you might be paying for much longer than that. To me, there wouldn't be any discrimination because of what you did, what would truly matter is if you completely understood your faults and learned from them.

     My hell takes place inside of you. It would be best symbolized by mirrors because the whole point of experiencing and suffering through hell is to make you realize who you truly are and what you've done that you mustn't ever do again. It's difficult to escape your own reflection, and these mirrors reflect your personality and your faults. This is what makes hell so horrible; you're there because of you. You're stuck because of what you did.
    There is an overabundance of people who would be in my hell because of how regular you see the crimes committed. Some examples of (maybe unrealistic, but again, examples) Regina George from the movie Mean Girls, Lindsey Lohan, and Al Capone. There is no certain list, of course, because hell is for punishment, and those who deserve punishing will be punished.

Tragic Endings

This week we finished our tragic hero posters and began presenting. We also wrote essays over an element of our tragic hero and how it related to the tragedy of Oedipus Rex. My group and I did our project over The Great Gatsby, who's tragic hero was Jay Gatsby. He was the protagonist in the film who was destined for tragedy. I was assigned the element of catastrophe, which includes 4 different scenes; reversal of fortune, reversal of intention,  recognition, and scene of suffering. It is also broken up into two parts; peripeteia and anagnorisis. The reversal of fortune occurred when Daisy told Gatsby that she did love Tom once, but she loved him too. This wasn't what Gatsby was wanting to hear, it wasn't enough for him. Reversal of intention was when Gatsby was trying to calm Daisy by taking her for a drive, but ended up killing Myrtle. Skipping ahead, recognition occurred when Gatsby realized he was shot, and nothing will ever matter anymore because it's too late; he's about to die. The scene of suffering was sadly his funeral. Not a single one of the massive audience he used to entertain showed up except for Nick, his one true friend. Not even Daisy.

In Oedipus Rex, peripeteia and anagnorisis can both be found. Peripeteia, by definition, is the sudden reversal of change or fortune in circumstances; the plot then proceeds to its denouement. This occurs in the play when the Messenger shows up from Corinth. He is only trying to ease Oedipus' mind by telling him his news, when it backfires and leads Oedipus straight to his fate. Anagnorisis is when the character in the play makes a crucial discovery; it means recognition. This occurs when the combined evidence of the messenger and the shepherd force Oedipus to realize who he truly is and what he has really done. Oedipus became very curious about his past even though he was told to leave it alone, and ended up doing what the prophecy said would happen.

Jay Gatsby, Old Sport!

We have started on our tragic heroes project, and so far it's been coming along very well. I absolutely love doing hands-on kind of projects, as I've always been the kinesthetic type of learner. Emiko, McCall, Katherine and I decided to do The Great Gatsby for our film, choosing Jay Gatsby as our tragic hero. I have always been a HUGE fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, so when Katherine suggested this movie I had no problem with going home and watching it right away. I fell in love with the movie, and after a good bit of thinking I agreed Jay Gatsby filled the role of a tragic hero completely. We are now in the process of painting golden stripes on our poster, and I think it will turn out great.

Jay Gatsby believes that there is a completely logical reason for his actions, yet all they do is bring disaster and pain. He follows the American Dream; he starts off "poor as dirt" and works his way to become extremely rich and very successful. However, he doesn't earn his money in a very clean way, foreshadowing his future problems. He meets Daisy, who is quite rich while he was starting off as very poor, and the difference in their social status kept them apart, although he never got over her. Daisy has a very materialistic outlook, and this influences Jay greatly. He claims it's all for Daisy, but it eventually becomes extremely excessive and corrupts him. He dies very tragically, and not one of the "friends" who used to come to his magnificent parties came to his funeral.