Author Archives: Tereza Koniakovska - Bors

Blog post #6

At the beginning of the story, readers could perceive the narrative of Benito Cereno as a thrilling story between good guys and bad guys. The ship is taken over by slaves (ostensibly bad guys), and the good captain Delano needs to do the right thing, stop the rebellion and save the original crew and the ship.
But when we read further on, we will realize that the revolt is just a desperate try of the slaves to extricate themselves from slavery and a huge injustice of that era. Herman Melville depicted the slavery practice as a part of our history, that is morally completely wrong, but unfortunately, lawful back then. All audience probably felt that the story’s termination is not right, but there was nothing that could have helped Babo at the end.
Slavery is part of our history, even in Europe, where slavery was not based only on race but also on social status, religion or political preferences, and many other aspects until the last century, where things started to change the western world. But there are still many places where slavery is accepted, and that is what we all should be aware of. Delano from the story could react differently. He could empathize with Babo and other slaves, and the narrative could lead to a different outcome. I think Melville wanted to say that it does not mean that all lawfully correct things are morally or ethically correct as well.

Blog post #5

I would like to discuss one of my favorite movies – Zelary.
The narrative is set up as a story of a young, ambitious nurse who decided out of her own moral and ethical urge to cooperate against nazists during the second world war. Consequences resulting from her bravery bring the audience a unique chance to understand the unprecedented time around the second world war and empathize with the complicated, emotionally challenging emergences and dilemma, which the nurse had to face.
The entire story does not have a set up the narrator. The plots are showing a difficult part of the nurse’s life from her own perspective.

The movie’s narrative contains three basics of the plots, beginning, middle, and end.
The beginning shows the nurse’s life before changing her successful life and escaping to a small village in the mountain.
The middle part describes living under a new identity in a fundamentally different environment, forced by the circumstances forget everything that she knew before, and be identified with that she will never again come back to her previous life.
The end shows what happened when the war ended.
The movie’s narrative is a very engaging set of plots that are portraying the atmosphere of that time and describe an unexpectable love story with many overlaps showing humanity, compassion, bravery, belonging to society, and sacrifice so often forgotten in our modern world.

I would also like to use a trailer of this movie as an example. The narrator is set up just for the preview, not involved in the story, but is putting forward narrative to capture potential viewers’ interest.

What does Culler say about narrative in the “What stories do” section What do you think about what he says?

I would definitely say that narratives have the value of knowledge. Minimally in the sense of learning some important life skill sets. For instance, through narratives, we can learn how to be more empathetic, have better imagination, learn from others’ mistakes, understand better others, and connect with others. We can also better connect to historical events and get a deeper look at what effect it had on people, not only historical facts. As it was said in the part about what stories do: “Stories are teaching us about the world, showing how it works or that novels are a powerful device of internalization” (Culler, chapter 6, page 92).

Blog Post #4

One of the rhetorical figures that are described in Chapter 5 is a metaphor. It is an integral part of our language, but also an artistic expression of the trope. I believe the poem called Diving Into The Wreck is consisted out of many metaphors. My attention grabbed, for instance, the part where it is written: we are the half-destroyed instruments. (Diving into the Wreck, Adrienne Rich) I think this metaphor is indicating that even we function ostensibly normally, during our lifetime, we are getting experiences that are harming us not only physically, but especially physically. If somebody will badly disappoint us or hurt us, our trust will probably be harmed. In the future, then, after our experiences, we will be more careful and maybe even unfair or skeptical towards other people that do not have anything to do with our past. We can still feel or have all kinds of emotions, but the emotions are usually somehow affected by our previous experiences.

Blog post #3

To me, the most interesting part of Culler’s fourth chapter, called Literature, Meaning, and Interpretation, was the part that is talking about Language and Thought. This particular part compares two different opinions of knowledge of the language and how it is related to our thoughts. The first theory is saying that our thoughts are independent, and a language is just a tool that provides a way how to express them. The second opinion is about the determination of our thoughts based on the language we speak. That caught my attention because English is my second language, and not only the words, but the structure and rules are entirely different compared to my native language, which is the Slavic language, Czech. I was forced to ask myself if my thoughts are limited in one or the other language. My answer is definitely no. I believe that learning and understanding a new language is closely related to reading or studying literature. Learning English was especially challenging for me, for its phrasal verbs or idioms, and so I had to open my mind a bit and think more abstractly to understand the meaning. It is not only about the language itself but also about its value-added because of conventions, history, or cultural habits that are an integral part of each language.
But it does not mean that I can not use one or the other language to precisely express my thoughts. I think it is just about the knowledge of the language and, of course, it is easier if you know even the intercultural connections. In the end, the same as the literature, we have to have an open mind and try to understand the meaning. That is why the literature is so important. Thanks to the literature, we can become more open-minded, creatively thinking individuals that understand each other, even if using different words to describe things. I liked the end of this part of the chapter, the last paragraph, specifically the most the sentence that says: “But speakers and readers can be brought to see through and around the settings of their language so as to see a different reality.” (Culler, page 60).

Blog post #2

After reading the second part of Culler’s essay, “The nature of literature,” I considered the most interesting and useful part called The functions of literature.
In my opinion, essential in this section was the acknowledgment of the liberal attribute of the literature and its power over readers in general. I think, we should ask the central question of how considerable is such influence, or how dangerous or beneficial the literature could be for the moral, political, or even social aspects of our society?
What also resonated with me was when Culler said: “literature encourages solitary reading and reflection as the way to engage with the world…”(Culler, page 40). How much could we learn about other cultures without literature and its freed, artistic approach of the language, its different structures, and many times the abstract meaning of the words concerning the local politic, habits, conventions, or period of time?
In addition, literature compared to the noise of culture made me think about the significance of literature, especially if we want to live in a united society or have some ability to debate informatively about it. Thru literature, we can learn not only empathy, but we can better question what is going on around us and if it is good or not, but at the same time, keep our mind open to all other possible points of view.

Blog post #1

In my opinion, the most important aspect of Chapter 2 and its first ten pages is that there is no simple definition of what literature is and what is not. Jonathan Culler describes many features of what could define literature, but all of them insist on more complex consideration. It is crucial to think about definitions of the literature because literature can enrich us in the sense of the knowledge of the language, and also provide informative value or emotional sensation. Literature also evokes in us thinking or asking questions, which is essential for critical thinking, for instance. Culler explains that sometimes it is complicated to determine if the text is literature or not because even fundamental aspects determining some of the texts are changing over time. Some of the old famous literature pieces could have been hundreds of years ago considered just an example of the rhetoric or use of language. Culler described as a suitable example of ads that are written in a certain way, and thanks to playing with the words and its order could remind a poem. In the meantime, some poems nowadays that are qualified as literature could sound as a part of the ordinary conversation. That is why Jonathan Culler, at the beginning of the chapter, suggests asking queries about the particular text. We should try to analyze it, and that can help to detect whether it is the writing literature or not. For instance, what is the relation between the words used? Could the specific terms attract the interest of the reader or what the author meant by that statement?
I think Culler wanted to say that literature is closely connected with the readers and what evokes in us reading of specific texts.

The question that stayed with me the most is: “What is involved in treating things as literature in our culture?” (page 23). I think that is very similar to art. Variations of modern, abstract paintings or conceptual art pieces could be considered by many as nonsense, but to many others, could have significant value, for instance, in associations that are appearing on their mind when looking at the specific art piece. It is a very complex and complicated question that is worthy of deeper thinking.

Introduction

Hello to all of you!
My name is Tereza Koniakovska – Bors, and I am thirty-five years old. I am originally from Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, but I live in New York in Astoria for five years now. My major is Fine Arts and Design studies. My hobbies are photography, sights in general, and wisdom and teaching of indigenous people of South America about live. I am happy to take another class of English with professor Fess.