HUMANISM: The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke

Humanism is a group of philosophies and ethical perspectives which emphasize the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers individual thought and evidence (rationalism, empiricism), over established doctrine or faith (fideism). The termhumanism can be ambiguously diverse, and there has been a persistent confusion between several related uses of the term because different intellectual movements have identified with it over time. In philosophy and social science, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of a "human nature" (contrasted with anti-humanism). In modern times, many humanist movements have become strongly aligned withsecularism, with the term Humanism often used as a byword for non-theistic beliefs about ideas such as meaning and purpose.

(from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism)

The Story:

(image from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Light_of_Othe_Days_Book_Cover.jpg)

The wormhole technology is first used to send digital information via gamma rays, then developed further to transmit light waves. The media corporation who develops this advance can spy on anyone anywhere it chooses. A logical development from the laws of space-time allows light waves to be detected from the past. This enhances the wormhole technology into a "time viewer" where anyone opening a wormhole can view people and events from any point throughout time and space.

When the technology is released to the general public, it effectively destroys all secrecy and privacy. The novel examines the philosophical issues that arise from the world's population (increasingly suffering from ecological and political disturbances) being aware that they could be under constant observation by anyone, or that they could observe anyone without their knowledge. Anyone is able to observe the true past events of their families and their heroes. An underground forms which attempts to escape this observation; corruption and crime are drastically reduced; nations discover the true causes and outcomes of international conflicts; and religions worldwide are forced to reevaluate their divine histories. As the underground movement grows, it utilizes a direct neural interfacecoupled with the unlimited communication provided by the wormhole technology to develop a group mind.

The Criticism:

One of the themes of the story was history was biased toward the point of view of the one who wrote it. The novel also featured historical events to be untrue.

In the novel, the story goes with the idea of the character. Further more, it shows how the human faith and privacy are destroyed by new technology. It also shows how one man's idea/concept affect the moral of the society.

EXISTETIALISM: A Matter of Life and Death by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Existentialism involves the attempt to make meaning in a chaotic world. Sartre argued, "man makes himself." As a form of literary criticism, existentialism seeks to analyze literary works, with special emphasis on the struggle to define meaning and identity in the face of alienation and isolation.

(from:http://classiclit.about.com/od/existentialism/Existentialism_Literary_Theory.htm)


The Story:

Squadron Leader Peter Carter is a British Royal Air Force pilot trying to fly a badly damaged and burning Lancaster bomber home after a mission over Germany on 2 May 1945. He has ordered his crew to bail out, without revealing that his own parachute has been shot up. He manages to contact June, an American radio operator based in England, and talks with her for a few minutes before jumping without a parachute.

Peter should have died at that point, but Conductor 71, the guide sent to escort him to the "Other World", misses him in the thick fog over the English Channel. The airman wakes up the next day on a beach near June's base. At first, he assumes he is in the afterlife, but then discovers to his bewilderment that he is still alive.

Peter meets June, cycling back to her quarters after her night shift, and they fall in love. Conductor 71 (an aristocrat executed in the French Revolution) stops time to explain the situation to Peter and urge him to accept his death and accompany him to the Other World, but Peter demands that the matter be appealed. While Conductor 71 consults his superiors, Peter continues to live his life. Conductor 71 returns and informs him that he has been granted his appeal and has three days to prepare his case. He may choose a defending counsel from among all the people who have died, but has great difficulty picking one.

Peter's visions are diagnosed by June's fascinated friend Doctor Reeves (Roger Livesey) as a symptom of a brain injury – chronic adhesive arachnoiditis from a slight concussiontwo years earlier – and he is scheduled for surgery. Reeves is killed in a motorcycle accident while trying to find the ambulance that is to take Peter to the hospital, which allows him to act as Peter's counsel.

Reeves argues that, through no fault of his own, his client was given additional time on Earth and during that time he has fallen in love and now has an earthly commitment that should take precedence over the afterlife's claim on him. The matter comes to a head – in parallel with Peter's brain surgery – before a celestial court – the camera zooms out from an amphitheatre to reveal that it is as large as a spiral galaxy. The prosecutor is American Abraham Farlan, who hates the British for making him the first casualty of the American Revolutionary War. Reeves challenges the composition of the jury, which is made up of representatives who are prejudiced against the British. In fairness, the jury is replaced by a cosmopolitan mixture of modern Americans whose origins are as varied as those they replace.

Reeves and Farlan both cite examples from British and world history to support their positions. In the end, Reeves has June take the stand (she is made to fall asleep in the "real" world by Conductor 71 so she can testify) and proves that she genuinely loves Peter by telling her that the only way to save his life is to take his place. She steps onto the stairway to the Other World without hesitation and is carried away, leaving Peter behind. Then the stairway comes to an abrupt halt and June rushes back to Peter's open arms. As Reeves triumphantly explains, "...nothing is stronger than the law in the universe, but on Earth, nothing is stronger than love."

The jury rules in Peter's favour. The Judge shows Reeves and Farlan the new lifespan granted to the defendant; Reeves calls it "very generous", and Farlan reluctantly agrees to it. The scene then shifts to the operating room, where the surgery is declared a success by the surgeon.

The Criticism:

In the story Peter Carter is dead without him knowing it. He lives his life like he still exists, but soon finds out he is really dead and needed to cross to the "other side".

 At first he got confused if he was really dead or alive. He struggles to fight for his rights to live, for he found love which he doesn't want to let go. The story perfectly fits the theory (existentialism) for the reason that, he would fight for his existence and combat the rules of life and death to be with his love. 

NEW CRITICISM: A Song of the Sandbags by Robert William Service

New Criticism was a movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly ofpoetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.

(from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism)


The Text:

A Song of the Sandbags

No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
(The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).
And though I strafes 'em good and 'ard I doesn't 'ate the Boche,
I guess they're mostly decent, just the same as most of us.
I guess they loves their 'omes and kids as much as you or me;
And just the same as you or me they'd rather shake than fight;
And if we'd 'appened to be born at Berlin-on-the-Spree,
We'd be out there with 'Ans and Fritz, dead sure that we was right.

A-standin' up to the sandbags
It's funny the thoughts wot come;
Starin' into the darkness,
'Earin' the bullets 'um;
(ZING! ZIP! PING! RIP!
'ARK 'OW THE BULLETS 'UM!)
A-leanin' against the sandbags
Wiv me rifle under me ear,
Oh, I've 'ad more thoughts on a sentry-go
Than I used to 'ave in a year.

I wonder, Bill, if 'Ans and Fritz is wonderin' like me
Wot's at the bottom of it all? Wot all the slaughter's for?
'E thinks 'e's right (of course 'e ain't) but this we both agree,
If them as made it 'ad to fight, there wouldn't be no war.
If them as lies in feather beds while we kips in the mud;
If them as makes their fortoons while we fights for 'em like 'ell;
If them as slings their pot of ink just 'ad to sling their blood:
By Crust! I'm thinkin' there 'ud be another tale to tell.

Shiverin' up to the sandbags,
With a hicicle 'stead of a spine,
Don't it seem funny the things you think
'Ere in the firin' line:
(WHEE! WHUT! ZIZ! ZUT!
LORD! 'OW THE BULLETS WHINE!)
Hunkerin' down when a star-shell
Cracks in a sputter of light,
You can jaw to yer soul by the sandbags
Most any old time o' night.

They talks o' England's glory and a-'oldin' of our trade,
Of Empire and 'igh destiny until we're fair flim-flammed;
But if it's for the likes o' that that bloody war is made,
Then wot I say is: Empire and 'igh destiny be damned!
There's only one good cause, Bill, for poor blokes like us to fight:
That's self-defence, for 'earth and 'ome, and them that bears our name;
And that's wot I'm a-doin' by the sandbags 'ere to-night. . . .
But Fritz out there will tell you 'e's a-doin' of the same.

Starin' over the sandbags,
Sick of the 'ole damn thing;
Firin' to keep meself awake,
'Earin' the bullets sing.
(HISS! TWANG! TSING! PANG!
SAUCY THE BULLETS SING.)
Dreamin' 'ere by the sandbags
Of a day when war will cease,
When 'Ans and Fritz and Bill and me
Will clink our mugs in fraternity,
And the Brotherhood of Labour will be
The Brotherhood of Peace.

(from:http://www.poetrycat.com/robert-william-service/a-song-of-the-sandbags)



The Criticism:


First of all the piece contains pirate like words, which for ME is a little weird.

The poem is about living during a war (why do you think that he keeps repeating the word BULLET?) and wishing for it to end. The sandbags represents protection from the outside forces that could do harm.

The poem is written in a style which is pretty informal. He doesn't include the letter "H" from the beginnings of words. Further more, he uses words such as "flim-flammed" (a pirate word that means cheated), "meself" (myself) etc. Though the poem is about life during war, it's fun to read because of those kind of words.

ROMANTICISM: Finding Nemo

Romanticism (or the Romantic era/Period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1840. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalismand radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.

The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions asapprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.

(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism)


The Story:

Two clownfish, Marlin and his wife Coral are admiring their new home in the Great Barrier Reef and their clutch of eggs that are due to hatch in a few days. Suddenly, a barracuda attacks them, leaving Marlin unconscious before eating Coral and all but one of their eggs. Marlin names this egg Nemo, a name that Coral liked.

The film then moves on to Nemo's first day of school. Nemo has a tiny right fin, due to a minor injury to his egg from the barracuda attack, which limits his swimming ability. After Marlin embarrasses Nemo during a school field trip, Nemo disobeys his father and sneaks away from the reef towards a boat, resulting in him being captured by scuba divers. As the boat sails away, one of the divers accidentally knocks his diving mask into the water.

While unsuccessfully attempting to save Nemo, Marlin meets Dory, a good-hearted and optimistic regal blue tang with short-term memory loss. While meeting three sharks on a fish-free diet, Bruce, a great white shark; Anchor, a hammerhead shark; and Chum, amako shark, Marlin discovers the diver's mask that was dropped from the boat and notices an address written on it. However, when he argues with Dory and accidentally gives her a nosebleed, the scent of blood causes Bruce to lose control of himself and attempt to eat Marlin and Dory. The two escape from Bruce but the mask falls into a trench in the deep sea. During a hazardous struggle with an anglerfish in the trench, Dory realizes she is able to read the address written on the mask, which leads to Sydney, Australia, and manages to remember it. After receiving directions to Sydney from a large school of moonfish, Marlin and Dory accidentally run into a bloom of jellyfish that nearly sting them to death; Marlin falls exhausted after the risky escape and wakes up to see a surf-cultured sea turtlenamed Crush, who takes Dory and him on the East Australian Current. In the current, Marlin reluctantly shares the details of his journey with a group of young sea turtles; his story spreads rapidly across the ocean through word of mouth and eventually finds Nemo in Sydney.

Meanwhile, Nemo's captor - P. Sherman, a dentist - places him into a fish tank in his office on Sydney Harbour. There, Nemo meets a group of aquarium fish called the "Tank Gang", led by a crafty and ambitious moorish idol named Gill. The "Tank Gang" includes Bloat, a puffer fish; Bubbles, a Yellow Tang; Peach, a starfish; Gurgle, a Royal gramma; Jacques, a pacific cleaner shrimp; and Deb, a Blacktailed Humbug. The fish are frightened to learn that the dentist plans to give Nemo to his niece, Darla. She is infamous for killing a goldfish given to her previously by constantly shaking the bag. In order to avoid this fate, Gill gives Nemo a role in an escape plan, which involves jamming the tank's filter and forcing the dentist to remove the fish from the tank to clean it manually. The fish would be placed in plastic bags, at which point they would roll out the window and into the harbor. After a friendly pelican named Nigel visits with news of Marlin's adventure, Nemo succeeds in jamming the filter, but the plan backfires when the dentist installs a new high-tech filter.

Upon leaving the East Australian Current, Marlin and Dory become lost in the blooms of plankton and krill and are engulfed by a whale. Inside the whale's immense mouth, Marlin desperately tries to escape while Dory communicates with it in whale-speak. In response, the whale carries them to Sydney Harbour and expels them through his blowhole. They are met by Nigel, who recognizes Marlin from the stories he has heard and rescues him and Dory from a flock of hungry seagulls by scooping them into his beak and taking them to the dentist's office. By this time, Darla has arrived and the dentist is prepared to give Nemo to her. Nemo tries to play dead in hopes of saving himself, and, at the same time, Nigel arrives. Marlin sees Nemo and mistakes this act for the actual death of his son. Gill helps Nemo escape into a drain through a sink after a chaotic struggle.

Overcome with despair, Marlin leaves Dory and begins to swim back home. Dory then loses her memory and becomes confused, but meets Nemo, who has reached the ocean through an underwater drainpipe. Dory's memory is restored after she reads the word "Sydney" on a nearby drainpipe and, remembering her journey, she guides Nemo to Marlin. After the two joyfully reunite, Dory is caught in a fishing net with a school of grouper. Nemo bravely enters the net and directs the group to swim downward to break the net, reminiscent of a similar scenario that occurred in the fish tank earlier. The fish, including Dory, succeed in breaking the net and escape. After some days, Nemo leaves for school once more and Marlin who is no longer overprotective or doubtful of his son's safety, proudly watches Nemo swim away into the distance.

Back at the dentist's office, the high-tech filter breaks down and The Tank Gang have escaped into the harbor. However, they realize that they are confined to the bags of water that the dentist put them into when cleaning the tank.

The Criticism:

The story follows the misadventures of Marlin, an overly protective single dad trying his best to raise his only child, Nemo.

The movie gives us an idea of what a single parent would do to raise his/her child. Marlin in the story represents a single parent who thinks he alone can raise his child without any help. In addition, he thinks he knows all the right things for his child, which in real human situations is a fact. Let's face it parents are over protective (sometimes) let alone a single parent. Nemo on the other hand, represents a curios kid who is eager to learn. Further more, he wants to break free of his father's suppression.

I've watched the movie a handful of times now, and just recently it occurred to me that the movie shows human like happenings such as, rebellion, the fear of being lost, the fear of losing someone, etc.  Also, the movie shows a couple of human emotions which greatly affects its viewers.

The story effectively takes the attention of viewers of all ages. It showed fear (represented by sharks in the movie), new love (represented by Dory), perseverance to escape (escaping the dentist's aquarium) and it highlighted the things that a parent would do in order to show the love his/her only child. It also included the power of parental love which we all experience.

READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM: Brown Penny by William Butler Yeats

Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates his or her own, possibly unique, text-related performance. It stands in total opposition to the theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role in re-creating literary works is ignored. New Criticism had emphasized that only that which is within a text is part of the meaning of a text. No appeal to the authority or intention of the author, nor to the psychology of the reader, was allowed in the discussions of orthodox New Critics.



The Text:

I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

(from:http://gardezi.tigblog.org/post/175271)



The Criticism:


The narrator of the poem is a young man who is infatuated of a young lady, who is probably experiencing his first love and unsure if he should approach the young lady or not. So to make up his mind, he flips a coin to decide, and presumably the coin told him to go to her and love her: "Go and love, go and love, young man,/If the lady be young and fair." at the same time the penny is the made the decision final yet he is still uncertain.

 The poem uses repetition to give it a tone, repeating the line "Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny" as well as "Go and love, go and love" to emphasize the message.
The brown penny in the poem represents an oracle and a subconscious choice of the lover to love which he found difficult that he had to flip a coin for it. And lastly, "I am looped in the loops of her hair." represents the attraction and entanglements of love itself.

To sum up all, the poem is about making a hard decision and letting fate decide.

FEMINIST CRITICISM: My Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught

Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth-century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller to cutting-edge theoretical work in women's studies and gender studies by "third-wave" authors. In the most general and simple terms, feminist literary criticism before the 1970s—in the first and second waves of feminism—was concerned with the politics of women's authorship and the representation of women's condition within literature.

(from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_criticism)


The Story:

Jamie is a senior in high school and, like so many of her peers, doing too much. Unlike so many of her friends, she is enormously, irreversibly, sometimes angrily (and occasionally delightedly) overweight. Her most immediate need is a scholarship to college, so she writes an explosive and controversial column every week in the school paper about being fat. Soon, Jamie finds herself fighting for her rights as a very fat girl - and not quietly. As her column raises all kinds of public questions, so too must Jamie find her own private way in the world, with love popping up in an unexpected place, and satisfaction in her size losing ground to real frustration.
Tapping into her own experience with losing weight, her training as a psychotherapist, and the current fascination in the media with teens trying drastic weight-loss measures, Susan Vaught writes searing and hilarious prose that will grip readers while asking the most profound questions about life.

(from:http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/v/susan-vaught/my-big-fat-manifesto.htm)





The Criticism:

First of all the cover is just plainly cool. I mean c'mon it's an upside down ice cream. OK... enough of that.
The story talks about a fat girl in a society where being so is seen as socially unacceptable. In our culture being fat is like the worst thing that could happen especially if you're a girl.
Basically, it shows the struggles of a fat girl to be accepted socially and break away from the suppression of other people.
The novel also highlights how a girl rises above the criticizing eyes of others. 

MARXIST CRITICISM: Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy

Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. Marxist criticism views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate. According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and has a specific ideological function, based on the background and ideology of the author.

(from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_literary_criticism)




The Story:

The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up one hundred and thirteen years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a socialistutopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalisation of all industry, the use of an "industrial army" to organise production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.

The young man readily finds a guide, Doctor Leete, who shows him around and explains all the advances of this new age; including drastically reduced working hours for people performing menial jobs and almost instantaneous, Internet-like delivery of goods. Everyone retires with full benefits at age 45, and may eat in any of the public kitchens. The productive capacity of America is nationally owned, and the goods of society are equally distributed to its citizens. A considerable portion of the book is dialogue between Leete and West wherein West expresses his confusion about how the future society works and Leete explains the answers using various methods, such as metaphors or direct comparisons with 19th-century society.

Although Bellamy's novel did not discuss technology or the economy in detail, commentators frequently compare Looking Backward with actual economic and technological developments. For example, Julian West is taken to a store which (with its descriptions of cutting out the middleman to cut down on waste in a similar way to the consumers' cooperatives of his own day based on the Rochdale Principles of 1844) somewhat resembles a modern warehouse club like BJ's, Costco, or Sam's Club. He additionally introduces a concept of credit cards in chapters 9, 10, 11, 13, 25, and 26, but these bear no resemblance to the instruments of debt-finance. All citizens receive an equal amount of "credit." Those with more difficult, specialized, dangerous or unpleasant jobs work fewer hours. Bellamy also predicts both sermons and music being available in the home through cable "telephone". Bellamy labeled the philosophy behind the vision "nationalism", and his work inspired the formation of more than 160 Nationalist Clubs to propagate his ideas.

Despite the "ethical" character of his socialism (though he was initially loath to use the term "socialism"), Bellamy's ideas somewhat reflect classical Marxism. In Chapter 19, for example, he has the new legal system explained. Most civil suits have ended in socialism, while crime has become a medical issue. The idea of atavism, then current, is employed to explain crimes not related to inequality (which Bellamy thinks will vanish with socialism). Remaining criminals are medically treated. One professional judge presides, appointing two colleagues to state the prosecution and defense cases. If all do not agree on the verdict, then it must be tried over. Chapter 15 and 16 have an explanation of how free, independent public art and news outlets could be provided in a more libertarian socialist system. In one case Bellamy even writes "the nation is the sole employer and capitalist". 

(from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward)

The Criticism:

First of all the story is sci-fi (science fiction). The book tackles about capitalism and its problems, the use of industrial army, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.

Basically, the novel is about the economic and technological developments in the society. In addition, it also tackled Edward Bellamy's concept of the year 2000's working environment and government.