Darlene McCoy
Karen Barad
FMST 80K
6 June 2011
The Supernova's Entanglement with Philosophy, Physics, and the World
    The lights in the sky have fascinated human kind ever since they had the capability to tilt their heads up toward the heavens and see them. They were once believed to be messages of the Gods by early priests, who then declared that their interpretations of the stars were divine. Since then, the stars have always been recorded, and among those recordings lay an enormous flux in luminosity from one area in the night sky. This gigantic flux in luminosity, recorded by Chinese astronomers in 185 CE, is the first supernovae on record. A supernova is the final event in a star's life: it is a massive explosion that reduces the star to a mere fraction of its original mass in a few seconds. A supernova releases an enormous amount of radiation, even as much as the sun is expected to over its entire life, at 10% the speed of light. The radiation drives a shock wave through the surrounding space, and the shock wave sweeps up the expanding gas and dust from the star, then leaves it behind as a supernova remnant.  The explosion is so bright that it can possibly outshine an entire galaxy, thus making mankind wonder as to why one section of their sky is incredibly bright for some amount of months. Through they wondered, it took almost 2,000 years for the term "Supernovae" to be coined by Fritz Zwicky. How is it that this image of a star exploding materialized in the human mind? How did history, science, people, and the world have to intra-act for supernovae to exist as they do today?
    Astronomy began with the Gods, and it took some time for human thought to disassociate the stars with them. The common masses believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, as they were taught by the Bible. They also believed that the universe was centered around the Earth due to the work of Claudius Ptolemaeus, an astronomer from Egypt, who published the treatise Almgest, which explained the universe as celestial bodies revolving around Earth, which remained at rest in the center of the universe. This geocentric model of the universe was not called into question until the Renaissance, when Nicolas Copernicus looked to the skies himself, and challenged all that people thought they knew about the world and its workings. He published his ground-breaking book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres shortly before he died due to either fear of religious persecution or the philosophical or scientific rejection of his idea of a heliocentric model of the universe. In his book, Copernicus appeals to the Pope, and tries to explain why he would question the teachings of the Bible:
Occasioned by this [the disagreements] I also began to think of the motion of the earth, and although the idea seemed absurd, still as others before me had been permitted to assume certain circles [the epicycles and loops] in order to explain the motions of the stars, I believed it would readily be permitted me to try whether on the assumption of some motion of the earth better explanations of the revolutions of the heavenly spheres might be found. . . . When the motions of the other planets are referred to circulation of the earth and are computer for the revolution of each star, not only do the phenomena necessarily follow thereform, but the order and magnitude of the stars and all their orbs and the heavens itself are so connected that in no part can everything be transposed without confusion to the rest and to the whole universe. (Motz, Llyod, Weaver, 63)
    Nicolas' intra-actions with prior knowledge allowed him to build new knowledge, and bring about a new way of thinking about the universe. Though he did not have physical objects to deem as apparatus at the time, Copernicus had his mind to make agential cuts -- he included some of the work of his predecessors, but not all of it. He chose to exclude prior knowledge to create new knowledge. The cost to make new knowledge was the work of his predecessors that did not continue to be regarded as fact after his work was published. Copernicus' work also cost him peace of mind, for he was far too afraid to publish his work until he thought it was definitive and true.
    Copernicus' work was taken up by Tycho Brahe, who attempted to create a model to appease science and religion. He did not readily accept Copernicus' model, so he created a model of the universe with the Earth at the center of the universe, with the Sun revolving around it, and the planets revolving around the Sun. Tycho was also one of the first men to observe a supernova. He noticed an incredibly luminous star in the sky in 1572 and watched as it eventually returned to the brightness of the other stars. Tycho was indeed brilliant, but because he rejected Copernicus' heliocentric model, he could not progress scientific knowledge as far as his mind would allow. Instead, his assistant, Johannes Kepler, became the man to be revered for his progress in figuring out the workings of the world.    
    Kepler, in looking over Brahe's work and doing some of his own, discovered that the planetary obit of Mars was off by about eight minutes of arc. After some computations, he deemed that Mars' orbit was off by eight minutes not due to an error in observation made by Brahe, but because the orbits of the planets are elliptical, not circular. This discovery, also known as Kepler's first law of planetary motion, broke through scientific thought at the time and did away with the idea of the planets having circular orbits. He also discovered that there had to be some force in the universe propelling the planets to move as they were, which lead to the most famous light-bulb moment of all time. (Motz, Llyod, Weaver 69-89).
    That light-bulb moment would be none other than the moment an apple fell on Isaac Newton's head. Newton formed his theory of gravity from this minor incident, and then changed the scientific world forever. Newton might not have formed his theory of gravity if Kepler did not propose the idea of some force holding the universe together, but because he did, gravity is a force that no man in the scientific world would willingly question today. The intra-action of their knowledge allowed Newton to be in the right place and mindset to have the breakthrough that he did. Furthermore, that breakthrough solidified more questionable science from the past, meaning Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and helped materialize man's conception of the universe and its workings.
    Without Isaac Newton's theory of gravity and the creation of calculus by his hand, more modern scientists would have never gotten the chance to think about how to contend with Newton's strict determinism. They would not have even had the apparatus, calculus, to make cuts that determined the new scientific laws each man set forth. If Einstein did not have the correct tools to formulate his Theory of Relativity, he might not have at all, but because he was blessed with the earlier intra-actions of the history of physics and astronomy, he was able to cut out from the knowledge formulating in his head the speed of light, which is quite the necessary component in measuring supernovae.
    In 1803, Thomas Young performed a two slit experiment that changed the way people thought about physics forever (Barad 98). He found that if diffracted one way, a particle would behave as a wave, and if diffracted in another way, it would behave as a particle. Because of this experiment, other scientists began to study light diffraction more in depth, and discovered how to create lasers, and how to record light visible and invisible to the human eye. Light diffraction is fundamental in understanding how supernovae are measured.
    The key way astronomers measure supernovae in the present time is through technology known as optical interferometry. Supernovae are not local phenomenon -- they are light years away -- and so the naked human eye cannot hope to measure one. Technology today, even, has just barley gotten to the point where stars outside of the Milky Way Galaxy can be measured using telescopes. Optical interferometry works much as Young's diffraction experiment did -- there are just some additional steps in order to ensure accuracy. On each side of the apparatus, a telescope collects light from whichever source is the current subject of interest. The light is then propagated by mirrors into an area where it is combined into a beam. The beam is further propagated by mirrors into what is called a delay line, which accommodates for the Earth's rotation. Then, the light is sent to a beam-splitter, and depending on the phase relationship of the waves, differing amounts of energy will be transmitted or reflected at the site of the beam splitting. Then, single-pixel detectors can measure the energy on both sides (Monnier 810-816). From those recordings, computers can generate images of supernovae, and scientists can use the energy measurements to determine an array of characteristics of the star of which the energy came from. Thus, because humans have a visual stimulant and scientific data proving a supernova's existence, the idea of a supernova materializes in the human mind as an object. Yet, it seems now that the word object seems like such a funny way to describe a supernova. The intra-actions of the world and its inhabitants in a certain way at certain times that allowed the supernova to materialize in the human mind are not so common as to simply label them as things that just exist. Supernovae only exist due to the material-discursive pratices that brought about the technology to cut them from their apparatuses into something that has meaning and matters.  How could they simply be describes as objects, then? Is it not phenomenal that the world worked in a certain way to create a concept in the human mind?
    What if all objects in the world were thought of as phenomena? How would a different epistemological look on the world change it? Supernovae were also only brought into the human mind by the practices that were not included in their development. By looking at the past and conceptualization of supernovae, the entirety of the history of physics becomes incredibly entangled. But for those physics to take place, other science, other ideas, other people, had to be excluded. Science is generally seen as wholly objective, but even in sciences that do not directly affect different types of people, purely physical sciences, there are ideas that are excluded, there are ideas that have been lost, and not all of them have been in the name of science alone, for which human can truly say that he is entirely objective in his work? What has that exclusion cost the world?

Lit 101 - Essay #3, Comparison of Two Critical Arguments

Darlene McCoy
Jody Greene
Lit 101
23 February 2011
The Fallacy of Bludgeoning Information
    Many a literary interpreter attempts to derive a meaning from an author's work, and many a literary theorist argues weather the act is possible. Roland Barthes and the collaborative work of W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley argue about weather or not the author's original intention in writing his work is even relevant to the meaning it produces - for they cannot critique it without determining the piece's meaning. Both parties give the same answer, but they arrive at their conclusion by different means. While Barthes provides a well-detailed argument, Wimsatt and Beardsley's argument discusses their points thoroughly and in a fashion that provides for more clarity.
    In his essay, "The Death of the Author," Barthes criticizes readers who determine a work's meaning based off its author's personal traits, beliefs, ethnicity, or any other component of an individual. The reader employs the author's biases to define a "correct" explanation of a text. "To assign an Author to a text is to impose a break on it, to furnish it with a final signified, to close writing" (Barthes, 53). Thus, the reader must separate author and text if he wishes to read a work in a way that is not flawed. Barthes continues, stating that the essential meaning of a text depends on the reader's interpretation, not how the author feels about it, or what he intended to write when he did. He also notes that every individual reads a work in a different way; that each work is "eternally written here and now" (Barthes 52). Since each being reads a text in a different fashion, it is impossible to determine a singular meaning of a text. The text, and only the text speaks for itself - the author's intention in writing the text is irrelevant to the meaning. In other words, the author, because he cannot influence the meaning of his work, dies, and is replaced by the scriptor - a being detached from emotion that uses only language as his origin.
    Wimsatt and Beardsley arrive at the same conclusion as Barthes: the intention of the author proves to be unimportant in determining a text's meaning. Their essay, "The Intentional Fallacy,"  begins by stating that poetry, writing, text, etc. belongs to the public once it is written. They then describe what evidence a reader can draw upon to prove the meaning of a poem. First of all, they explain what they call "Internal Evidence." This evidence is what is present in the text - the historical knowledge needed to understand it, its forms, traditions - everything that makes a language and a culture. It is internal to the type of work - when analyzed, it can never present an intentional fallacy. Next, they define "External Evidence" - evidence that is concerned with the author's intention in creating the work - why he did it. These claims are external to the work itself, and therefore can provide for an intentional fallacy. The third type of evidence is named "Contextual Evidence," and it compares the works of an author. For writing's sake, contextual evidence would compare the sentence structure, tropes, or phrases a certain author uses. Contextual evidence can sometimes cause an intentional fallacy, but other times, contextual evidence, in the case of biographical information, can aid in determining meaning. If a word meant a certain thing for one author, that meaning is part of the history of the word, and therefore its meaning. They conclude that a text's internal evidence is the only evidence that does not create a fallacy. Internal evidence does not encompass the author, but it does encompass how the public interprets it. "[The text] is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it. The poem belongs to the public" (Wimsatt and Beardsley 104). The public can interpret the work in only one way - it can use its knowledge of language to determine meaning.
    Though their paths are different, Wimsatt and Beardsley and Barthes share common ground in arguing that the author's intention is irrelevant to a work's meaning. They both conclude that the author has no control over his work; the "readers" or "public" do. They are the ones that determine the meaning, for they use internal evidence, as Wimsatt and Beardsley call it, or language, as Barthes calls it, to define meaning. They do not use the external evidence provided by the author's life, beliefs, and psychology. Only the text can speak for itself.
    While both essays excel at arguing their points, Barthes fails to be as clear or appealing as Wimsatt's and Beardsley's. Wimsatt and Beardsley organize their essay into a form that makes more sense structurally - it is divided into five parts - each containing remarks on a certain idea. Their division of the "evidence" into three different parts allows for the reader to understand them more clearly. Barthes' essay is a nonstop information machine. It goes until the reader is bludgeoned by so many reasons that he becomes utterly convinced that Barthes is correct in his statements. Another reason why the Wimsatt and Beardsley essay resonates more prominently is that the two address a counterpoint to each defined piece of "evidence." Addressing these counterpoints, and explaining them, helps bolster their own point. In the case of internal evidence, they argue that language is what it is - and nothing more - so it will always retain the same intention. For external evidence, they argue that it has no part in literary criticism, and belongs in literary biography, because as soon as an author creates a work, it belongs to the public, and his intention is rendered irrelevant. In the defense of contextual evidence, they argue that the line between it and external evidence is far too fine, and that contextual evidence crosses over that line far too often for it to be considered pertinent to the meaning of the text. It simply ventures too far from the internal context of the work. Once again, Barthes presents his ideas, and assumes that the reader will not question them.  Wimsatt and Beardsley prove that the author's intention is irrelevant using an example, a confession of how a poem was written by Alfred Edward Housman. "As I went along, thinking of nothing in particular, only looking at things around me and following the progress of the seasons, there would flow into my mind, with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza at once" (Wimsatt and Beardsley 107). From this passage, it becomes clear to the reader that Housman was inspired by the world around him - he had no intention to even write a poem in the first place, the lines simply came to him. It is impossible to determine an author's intention, especially if it never existed. The last difference between the two essays that makes Wimsatt and Beardsley's more preferable is the fact that Barthes destroys the sense of the author. He takes away the author's life, his influences, and throws them away. Wimsatt and Beardsley simply state that the author, after writing a piece, no longer has control of his work. There is no ultimatum or radical title to their work, which makes the piece more appealing and less inhospitable compared to Barthes. All in all, though, both works present their points in a clear, readable format, Wimsatt and Beardsley just do it better.

Lit 101 - Short Assignment #2

Darlene McCoy
Jody Greene
Lit 101
February 14, 2011

Subtly Sexual Satire

In J.M. Coetzee's novel, Foe, he engages his text with quite the hefty amount of literary theory. In a certain scene, Susan Barton, the protagonist, discusses with a Mr. Foe, an author, how the written word comes to a person. She says, "The Muse is a woman, a goddess, who visits poets in the night and begets stories upon them. In the accounts they give afterward, the poets say that she comes in the hour of their deepest despair and touches them with sacred fire, after which their pens, that have been dry, flow" (Coetzee126). This passage engages with the idea of the Muse, as set down by Plato. "Therefore, since their making is not by art, when they utter many things and fine about the deeds of men, just as you do about Homer, but is by lot divine - therefore each is able to do well with only that to which the Muse has impelled him" (Plato 16). The Muse visits an author, and imparts upon him a story. It is only by chances that the Muse will visit, though, and the author will fail to produce quality work if the Muse has not yet seen him. Though the thought is similar, Coetzee is not simply promoting Plato's concept of the Muse - he is in fact, mocking the idea.

Previous to Susan's depiction of the Muse - she and Mr. Foe had been chatting, and he abruptly kisses her - to which she responds to positively. Love finds its way into the air, so when the reader reads the phrase, "She touches them with sacred fire, after which their pens, that have been dry, flow," the notion that more than talk of the Muse may be taking place enters his mind. Indeed, in the following pages, Susan Barton and Foe share a bed. They do as human beings do - they have relations of the sexual nature. Before the encounter, Susan whispers to Foe, "This is the manner of the Muse when she visits her poets" (Coetzee 139). After they finish, Foe says, "A bracing ride - my very bones are jolted, I must catch my breath before we resume" (Coetzee 140).  Coetzee pokes fun at the idea of the Muse's visit by sexualizing it. Plato describes the Muse's visit as from the gods, and the author as an interpreter of the gods - an event to be taken as quite holy and divine (Plato 15). In the novel, Susan and Foe fornicate in a fashion that is less than divine. Fornication on its own is a very human act – it is human instinct to reproduce, and humans are to the gods as apples are to minivans – completely different. The fact that Foe acknowledges that he has been "jolted" further emphasizes the joke Coetzee makes of the Muse. His specific reconstruction of the idea makes a parallel between Plato’s Muse and the happenings of Foe, making it easier for the reader to decipher the jest. By making this joke, he insinuates that the concept of the Muse is a folly, and that "inspiration" comes from life itself. This is a direct contradiction to Plato's intended meaning - for he truly believed that the Muse was a being of substance. After reading this passage, Susan's initial description of the Muse becomes increasingly symbolic of intimacy, and the idea of the Muse becomes increasingly absurd. Therefore, Foe engages with the text of Plato by mocking and contradicting it in a subtle little way.

Lit 1 Final Essay - Axoltl, Julio Cortarzar

Darlene McCoy
Madeline McDonald-Lane
LIT1
8 December 2010

When Words Fail, Actions Speak

    Paris during the 1950s embodied the center of the French existential movement. It is no wonder, then, that a scholar should pick up on the ideas that swirled about the city of lights. Julio Cortazar, that said scholar, did so, and found himself attracted to the works of Jean-Paul Sartre.  Sartre advanced the existential movement though his written work, and Cortarzar, not just a scholar, but an author as well, digested his dogma. He regurgitates what he read in his short story, Axolotl. The events and concepts implemented in the tale provide examples that explain Sartre's concepts.
    Axolotl, which spans only a few pages, recounts a tale about an unnamed boy who becomes so entranced and obsessed with the axoloti in a local aquarium that he himself transforms into one. He enters the aquarium due to his boredom with everyday life, as defined by the panthers and lions he would otherwise go see. An axolotl is a type of Mexican salamander that does not undergo metamorphosis, so it remains in its larval state for the rest of its life. Gills remain attached to the side of an axolotl's face, and deep penetrating eyes set themselves in their ghost-like transparent faces.
    Axolotl presents a boy, but gives no information as to where he lives, his family, or anything significant in his life. The information given - he currently roams about Paris, and is an inquisitive and curious being - says nothing about how he externalizes himself in society. After the first time he sees the axoloti, he seeks more information and comes upon them up in an dictionary at the local library. He discovers that "specimens of them had been found in Africa capable of living on dry land during the periods of drought, and counting their life under water when the rainy season came" (161). This phrase foreshadows the deep empathy the boy will feel for the lonely axoloti later, which creates the mood of the piece. The reader relates to the boy's curiosity, which sparks a connection and interest in the story.
    Sartre writes that, the past of a human being is irrelevant, because a human can always change who they are. Cortarzar does not take the time to compose the boy's background because it does not matter: he creates a character as an example to explain Sartre's thought. No matter who or what the boy is, the capability to reconstruct his life in any manner he means to will not elude him, for he is human. It just so happens that he physically reconstructs his life into that of an odd-looking salamander. To further emphasize this point, Cortarzar at first conceives the notion in the boy's head that the axoltols have some secret agenda, some romantic idea, to "abolish space and time with an indifferent immobility" - he learns later that they just simply exist, and that their existence is not as romantic as he once thought (162). The conscious decision to change his mind about the axolotls renders his previous thoughts, his previous history with the axoloti, irrelevant.
    The idea that a human being paints his own portrait of himself by his actions, encompasses a large portion of Sartre's work. In Axolotl, the boy returns time and time again to observe the axoloti. "It got to the point that I was going everyday, and at night I thought of them immobile in the darkness, slowly putting a hand out which immediatley encountered another" (163). He lies awake at night, and contemplates their existance. He ponders their situation, wondering if their reality is one giant blur of life, "Perhaps their eyes could see in the dead of night, and for them they day continued indefinitely. The eyes of axolotls have no lids" (163). As each day passes, the boy becomes more and more obsessed and repeats his dismal actions. During the last day of his humanity, he realizes the truth of the axoloti's reality. His empathy then overcomes him, envelops him, buries him alive in the body of an axolotl. He is no longer human: he transforms into an axolotl. "No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood" (164). Cortarzar defines the boy's actions clearly so that the reader may absorb Sartre's concept. Existance preceeds essence - the boy transforms into an axolotl because he acts like an axolotl, not because he defines himself as one. He acts in the same way, over and over again, mindlessly, he concentrates only on them. The axoloti imprison his brain. They become his reality, and he becomes them. If, in his mind, he defined himself as an axolotl, he would only be deceiving himself. He would not truly be an axolotl, but a human being who believes he is an axolotl.
    Sartre claims that the freedom to choose is a defining trait of humanity. He rejects determinism - each human being is not set on a determined path because they have a choice in how to respond to naturally determining factors. Humans have the ability to change their lives. When the boy becomes an axolotl, he loses his humanity; he loses his freedom to choose. "The horror began - I learned in the same moment - of believing myself prisoner in the body of an axolotl, metamorphosed into him with my human mind intact, buried alive in an axoltl, condemned to move lucidly among unconscious creatures" (164). He cannot choose to be outside of the aquarium tank; he cannot even choose where to sit in the tank, the other axoloti fill in the remaining minuscule space. "But that stopped when just a foot grazed my face, when I moved just a little to one side and saw an axoltol next to me who was looking at me, and understood that he know also, no communication possibly, but very clearly" (164). Cortarzar employs the boy's thoughts again to demonstrate Sartre's concept. Without the freedom to choose, humans lose their identity as humans because they can no longer define themselves through their chosen actions.
    In the story, the boy relates the axoloti to humans. He feels as if he can connect with the axolotl, even if they relate to him as remotely as a present-day monkey does. He notices this feeling instantaneously, "There's nothing strange in this, because after the first minute I knew that we were linked, that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together" (161). For some reason, he senses the humanity in these animals, but finds himself incapable of an explanation for his feelings. He describes their faces as being Aztec-like, their feet as "ending in tiny fingers with minutely human nails," and their eyes as having the ability to look and know (162-163). He even goes as far as to say, "They are not animals" (163). If not animals, what? The boy develops a deep empathy for the axolotl, as he would with other human beings, because he feels so closely related to them. "I caught myself mumbling words of advice, conveying childish hopes. They were not human beings, but I had found in no animal such a profound relation with myself" (163).
    Axolotl touches upon Sartre's idea that humans should be treated as subjects, not objects. They should look further than the roles society gives them, and find themselves. The axoloti remain caged and cramped in their dreary reality, and since the axoloti and humans correlate in this story, the boy feels even more empathy for them. He feels as if they are being treated as merely objects, not as the living, breathing, thinking creatures they are to him. The world views them gilled salamanders in a tank, there for viewing pleasure. The idea that the axoloti may have conscience thought escapes the world. When the boy transforms he feels his own conscience, "I am an axolotl for good now, and if I think like a man it's only because every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance" (164-165). He feels as if the axolotl think like he does, because they endure the same reality.
    As his obsession progresses, the boy mentions the encasing glass more frequently. In his narrative, he uses the phrases, "against the glass" and "the other side of the glass," and by doing so, he unconsciously notes the separation between he and the axoloti. This separation, he realizes, is not merely just, but is also a confinement for the creatures. Through this analogy, Cortarzar draws a conclusion about the human condition as defined by Sartre. The axolotl are imprisoned in their aquatic cell; humans are imprisoned on Earth. They must all work and die together, no matter their historical background or role. Not one can escape the condition set to them. The boy forms this bond with the axolotl because though he is unaware, he shares the same fate that they do. Once he becomes an axolotl, he realizes his condition, and despairs - he knows that there is nothing he can do to change his condition. "Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usual, to know. To realize that was, for the first moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate" (164).
    Sartre address the idea of despair. He says that, humans naturally limit themselves to think about only the things they can control in their lives, and when they realize that they cannot control some things that are very important to them, they find themselves in anguish and despair. The axolotls realized their fate, and now wait, for that is all they can do, until their situation changes. "They were lying in wait for something, a remote dominion destroyed, an age of liberty when the world had been that of the axolots. Not possible that such a terrible expression which was attaining the overthrow of that forced blankness on their stone faces should carry any message other than one of pain, proof of that eternal sentence, of that liquid hell they were undergoing." (164). Once the boy realizes that the axolotls are aware of their situation, he cannot help but feel more empathy for them. "They were suffering, every fiber of my body reached toward that stifled pain" (164). He longs for them to be free, as he is, but as he obsesses more and more, he relinquishes his freedom, and becomes more like the prisoners he attempts to empathize with.
    The boy in the story describes the axolotol's eyes in great detail. "And then I discovered its eyes, its face. Inexpressive features, with no other trait save the eyes, two orifices, like brooches, wholly of transparent gold, lacking any life but looking" (162). They mystify him. He cannot fully understand anything taking place behind those perplexing eyes. Once he becomes an axolotl, he acquires the mindset to be able to comprehend their plight. He attains another form of sight, and he can never return to the way he once was. Existentialism introduced the world to another way of thinking and seeing. Once its ideas ran through the mainstream public, many lives were changed, and many eyes opened to a new form of vision.
    One can see only his reality, and his reality differentiates from every other being's. The tank encloses the limit of the axoloti's reality. Because there is nothing but the tank and one another - the axoloti evolved into creatures so numb to their reality that they fail to acknowledge each other, or anything else. "It was useless to tap with one finger on the glass directly in front of their faces; they never gave the least reaction" (162-163). Trapped in the abyss of their own worlds, the axoloti relate to humans, forever burdened by the human condition.
    The beginning and end of this piece tie one to another and create a continuous cycle. A typical story opens with such a line as, "There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls" (161). It prepares the reader for what is to come in the following text. The end of Axolotl, "And in this final solitude to which he no longer comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is going to write a story about us, that, believing he's making up a story, he's going to write all this about axolotls" brings the story around to the first line - an introduction to a story about axoltols (165). The reader feels trapped in this cycle, in the sphere of the story. The form duplicates the story: a boy finds something that interests him, he obsesses over it, and eventually becomes it. His thoughts alter from that of a free boy to an axolotl confined to a small space and bleak reality - a reality that is as horrible as being buried alive. The piece itself is quite perplexing, and entices the reader into thinking about what took place in the few pages read. Axolotl is a warns against feeling too much empathy; it is a cautionary tale. Too much empathy will overcome a person because understanding another being to the fullest extent is impossible. Even though the boy puts himself into the same situation as the axoloti, he cannot understand completely what each and every one feels about their situation, because they cannot fully communicate. This relates to the idea of the human condition in the sense that one human, even in the same situation, cannot feel the same exact way as another; one axolotl, even in the same situation, cannot feel the same exact way as another. They are the same, yet different, because their actions have defined who they are in the world, and no person save the individual himself can understand one's thoughts and experiences.

These are Freaking Brilliant!!

From The Quill, my friend's blog:

http://thequillnews.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/uw152/

I LOL'D SO HARD XD XD XD

http://thequillnews.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/uw145/

...because I love Napoleon

http://thequillnews.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/uw142/

...because it's hilarious.

Woo! Almost 3 AM now! \^^/

Sophie's World

This is a novel I read my sophomore year in AP Euro...

It's like a philosophy textbook and a novel in one...

The story is compelling, and the "textbook" part isn't God awful. You want to read the philosophy so you can get back to and understand the story!

Great novel - I recommend this book to anyone who loves a read to make you think... it's wonderfully put together.

:]