First they Came...

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
(Martin Niemoller)

     This statement of Martin Niemöller reflect on the attitude of the people before the war a lot, and it also seems like a sarcasm to them. When Hitler first come to attack the Jews, people who were not Jews wasn't concerned, because they are not the target! Many people just let it pass because they are afraid to speak up, so they just silently watch these things happening and allow these people, the Nazi, to take the Jews, Gypsies, handicaps, and homosexual into these concentration camps and be torture to death.

     Pastor Martin want people to realize that a community and individual are not opposite, a person cannot survive by its own, they'll need help from other too! So when problems are coming after you, you need to work together with others too! You need to act, even though the oppressive is not on you, otherwise you'll soon face everything alone. He want the people that time to understand, just sitting and watching the bad guys oppressing on the innocent yet they are still able to make no sound is not reasonable! That's not how a community works! Probably even the Nazi show more team work then them!

With this said, it's reasonable to say that it's not ALL Nazi's responsiblilty for such a tragedy like this to happen, the whole community has responsibility too. How can you even remain silent during such a horrible time? Plus, you can say the power of Nazi was given by the people, because they voted on Hilter. Since they chose Hilter, you can say that they are expecting something good for the society from him, right? Or else why did they voted for him? So now Hitler was elected, and he form the Nazi armies and plan all these kind of terrible punishment on these certain type of people, how can the rest of the people still remain silent? They should speak up, because this is who they voted for doing something they are not expecting from him. But instead of standing up for these people, they chose to ignore it. Probably they are afraid of the power of the Nazi or whatever, but this is not a good enough excuse for these people to remain silent...they allow these people to come back over and over again until over 12 million innocent people were killed! And the final end and rescue for these victim didn't even come from the people of German itself...how sad?

The same ideas apply til now, even in my own life, I feel like I have full responsiblilty for what is happening now in my family and school, but a little bit less for what's happening in this city and the world.
It is obvious that each family member have full responsiblilty in what is happening inside the house, because family unit is the first and the base unit of a person's life (mostly). For example, responsibilities like the cleaness of the house, different chores, and the attitude and emotion of each other(sometimes). Sometimes an attitude or a belief of a person was influence by our family member, since that is who we are closest to.

Now for my school, I feel like I have full responsibility in what is happening too! One reason is because our school is much smaller than normal academy. But things such as school events, rumors, and the reputation of the school, everyone is responsible. Sometimes it only take a person's action for a lot more others to do the same too! If one student decides not to go on SA Day, probably ten more students won't want to go, if one student decides to go to Saturday cinema, probably ten more students will go, this is how the responsibility of an individual comes in. If one person did something wrong and was kick out of the school, other people, probably other school or the parents will start wondering on the quality of the students in the school. The same way, if one student get to go to a really famous college, the parents and student from other school will start to think that the school is good! Same goes with rumor, if someone start a rumor of someone, it will pass to everyone's ear within a week! Another thing that I think we as a part of a school has responsibility for is the oppression inside the school . If a kid is bully by a group of students, we should stand up because it's wrong.

Now for a city and the world, I feel like as an individual, you have less responsibility. Because the world is too big you can't really know what is happening. Like the thing happening in Africa right now, you can't say a student in Taiwan has responsibility to it, because they don't even know about it! But the responsiblilty that I might give to the world is if I see and know about it but yet I chose to ignore because I believe my vote is not much of a deal, then it's my responsibility for whatever happens afterward. For example, now I know about this thing happening in Africa and I know that people are trying to let others to know through different media, if I chose to ignore, then I have a part of responsibility to what will happen in the future. Some other responsiblilty as an individual to the world are like the idea of littering and voting(I don't think I need to explain since we kind of discuss it after class). I think these three ideas also apply in a city and a country.

Anne Frank timeline

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/28479/Betty-Liao-English-II/

Point of View Videos

Group- Betty Liao, Kelly Chi, Eddie Jeng, Wade Feng

POV- First Person

POV- third Person Limited

POV- Objective

POV- Third Person Omniscient

Point of View Video Trailer

POV-An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge

     Recently we've been studying about different point of view in English II. There are basically three catogory of point of view-first person point of view, third person limited point of view, third person omniscience point of view, and objective point of view. After learning about these different point of view the readers are more likely to see who's perceptive are they reading from and how accorate it's. We even read and watch in class, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, as an example to demonstrate how these point of view works. So now I'm going to break down different examples that occured inside the story's video to help explain these different point of view.

1. First person point of view
     From this point of view, the narrator participate inside the story as one of the characther, using "I" and "me" to express thier feelings and thoughts. But this recounting from the narrotor might not be the objective truth, it could be a lie from them since it's what they "think" from their own perspective.

Ex: Inside the story, the main charactor got a rope tied around his neck and was ready to be killed, but luckily, he escaped and start singing and praising, saying, "I am living..., a living man..., I want to be a living man!" It seems like from his point of view he has escaped from death and is living now, but in reality, we really don't know is this true or not, and that's how it works with first person point of view.

2. Objective point of View
     From this point of view, the narrator does not participate in the action nor did they get inside one of the character's brain. They just simpliy look at the whole sotry from the outside, like it's through a video camera and say according to what they see and hear.

Ex: Inside the story after the man escape, the background music starts to play. We can hear a man singing, "He moves around, he turns around, the birds fly and creatures are moving and living around this world." We can see from these lyrics that the narrator is decribing the action and looking of the whole scene, he did not talk about their thoughts or feeling, but just simpliy what it will look like from a video camera.

3. Third person Limited Point of View

     Like the name, this point of view limited the narrator inside one character's brain. They did not participate inside the story or control the whole story, they just say the action, thinking and feelings of the character. It's like they are inside the person's brain to tell the reader what happened.

Ex: Inside the story where we see the first imagination of the character of his wife and kids, we hear him calling his wife's name, "Hebe, Hebe, Hebe...", as the clock ticks slowly. It may not be as clear because it does not use any he or she to explain the character's action, but we can see it as he call out his wife's name. From this narrating we can see only what the main character is thinking (his wife), doing (calling her name), and feeling (time was slow because he can hear his watch ticking).

4. Third Person Omniscient Point of View
     Similar to the third person limited point of view, this narrates from a third person's point of view without participating or controling the story. The only difference is that from this point of view the reader can see the whole action, thinking, and feeling of all the characters instead of just one.

Ex: At the every end of the story we finally hear the narrator talking directly about the whole story. He said, "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, in two forms, as it was dream, as it was live and die, this is a stuff of fantasy and a threat of imagination." Now everything is clear to the audience, the whole "story" in the middle is just an imagination of the man. He did not escape, he just thought of all the escaping plan because the time is moving too slow (for him).

This is a great fantasy story as we see the narrotor jumping from different point of view when he was telling the story. It's just amazing how Ambrose Bierce led the reader into thinking that all these imaginations of the main character is real, and it's only until the last paragraph of the story we realize this shocking truth of the who story...it's all fanstasy.

Three changes in Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis: a change in physical form, character, or circumstances

     In the book, Metamorphosis, we can see changes, many changes, like the meaning of the title of the book. After reading this book, there are three major changes that stood up clearly to me, and I categorize them into physical form, character, and circumstances, as below:


1. The effect of Gregor's Physical change on his mind

     Gregor woke up one day finding himself transform into an insect. We don't know why and how this happen and even at the end we still have no clue. But I don't think that's the main part that the author wants the readers to focus on. As we can see, the transformation cause Gregor unable to communicate with his family, although he still understand them, they can't decode his words, so to them, Gregor is a complete insect, when in reality, we as readers see this whole story in the view of Gregor so we understand that there is still humanity inside of his mind. It's just that the mind and they body are not in harmony. Although he continues to think with a human mind, his actions follow his body's desire, he can't reconcile between these two part of him. We can see this clearly shown when his mom helps him to move the furniture so it would be easier for him to crawls around, but he still want to leave some "furniture" inside his room because he's afraid that it will turn into a cave! He need the furniture inside to provide emotional comfort that help reminds him of his former life.

There are still humanity remains inside
of Gregor's bug-like body.

From this part of the story we can see the choice he's struggling to make between physically comfortable or emotionally comfortable, but at last he chose emotional comfort, that's why he cling to the picture so much. His family didn't understand that this is a sign which means Gregor isn't able to give up on his humanity completely yet, even at the end he is not able to give up too, although his body still remain opposite from his mind. Through these details we can see how our physical lives affect our mental lives, not the other way around, like Gregor's transformation, he start to behave like an insect although he still has a human mind.

2. Grete's changes from a girl to a woman
     Grete go through her own transformation too, both physically and mentally. From Gregor's perspective, we see Grete as an innocent little girl who relies on her family and has this dream of going to music school, but after Gregor's transformation, she begins to take adult duties, such as getting a job to help support her family or caring for Gregor.

She starts to think differently and understand more. She support her parents verbally  and she even stood up at last so they could get rid of Gregor and end this burden. In the last few sentences of the story her parents realize that she has grown into a beautiful young lady, this show the readers that she is now an adult emotionally also physically. 

In zoology, metamorphosis also means a stage of an insect/amphibian developing from an immature form into an adult after experiencing a physical transformation. So after Grete had experience and overcome all these things due to Gregor's change, she finally gets to stretch out her young body, like a butterfly just out of the cocoon, and fly out to reach her dreams.

3. The changes in circumstances of the family

     The last major change that happened inside the story is the whole circumstances of the family. They use to rely on Gregor for the money income after his dad had fail in business, but after the transformation, they start to take more responsiblity for the house. Grete starts to find a job and take care of Gregor, the mom start to help and even the dad start to go to work.

Even though at last they cannot bear anything from Gregor anymore, they overcome their financial problems and prepare to move, sent Grete to school, and find a husband for her. They found relief after Gregor's death because they no longer need to deal with his presence and they also completed an emotional transformation as they experience through all these troubles and find hope at last.

     The whole story of Metamorphosis is base on changes in physical body, character, and circumstances of the family. Although it's really sad to see Gregor die at the end after all his investment and sacrifice, it's still nice to see the whole family start to grow and get going with life. Even though it seems like they didn't realize the sacrifice Gregor had made for the whole family since they lack communicate and lose sympathy of the whole family. They even take Gregor's death as a new start of their life and a relief for them! They are happy with the start, but they will never know the whole sacrifice of Gregor and how they had torn his hearts into pieces with their thorn-like words and leave him dying so painfully and lonely at the end. They never understand the sacrifice, and we will never understand why did he sacrifice.

This reminds me of someone who sacrifice at first for people who didn't understand his sacrifice, and will never truely understand the "LOVE" of him that cause him to sacrifice for us. I believe after reading this story the fourth major change will take place, which is in the reader's itself, both mentally and physically.

Furniture = ??

     Recently our English II class is reading a story call Metamorphosis, and inside this story, the main character, Gregor Samsa transformed into an insect, but this transformation took place in the very beginning of the story, which says he woke up and realizes that he had turned into an insect.

     Gregor Samsa is a travel salesman. Although he spent most of his day doing his job, he doesn't seems to enjoys it that much. The reason that he is taking this job that he disliked so much is because he has this burden to pay his father's business debt and to support the entire family. He actually can choose not to do this tiring job if his family didn't rely on him that much. Even after his transformation, he is still worring about how to get to work and what should he take so he won't be late! Of course he realize the fact that he can't go anywhere with this body so he just stays in his room and hope that everything can go back to normal.

     As we were reading this story, we begin to see the influence of Gregor's physical body has on his mental thinking and psychology. He starts to hide under the dark sofa, and crawls on the ceiling and the walls. As a result, he realize that he is more comfortable if his room has no furniture so he can just crawls around freely. But his humanity never disappeared entirely, because he had this struggle inside his heart when he sees his mother moving the furnitures, he even ask himself, "Had he really want to transform his room into a cave, a warm room fitted out with the nice furniture he had inherited?"

Symbolism alarm!! So...

Without furniture = cave

Furniture = room

Furniture= ??

     So what is furniture according to all these "equation"?? Well, as we read on, we see how Gregor is recalling his childhood memories from these furnitures. Like the desk reminds him of the time when he was doing his assignments as a boy. As he is recalling these memories, he suddenly felt desperate to hold on to these few reminders of his childhood memories, futhermore, the memories he had when he is still a human, the memories that remind him of his humanity, so he clings to the picture of the woman muffled in fur.

     Now we know, that furniture = to humanity, the character inside of him that was not gone yet, which is also the thing that brought up the argument between our class in whether we should call him a human or a bug. But he know it himself that with the furniture inside his room, it is still his room, the place where he grew up as a boy, but without the furniture inside, he know that he will transform it into a cave, to something strange and different, although in reality it is still his room.

So we can also conclude that the room itself represents Gengor's physical body; without the humanity inside his heart, which is like the room without the furniture, he is transformed into a 100% insect, something strange and weird which is also like an empty cave inside his heart; but with the humanity still remain, like the room with the furniture, he is still a "human" somehow. In the same way, he is still him even though he is transformed into a bug, but because it is the same, we can tell the struggle inside his heart between the room, which is him as a human, and the cave, which is him as a bug. We can also see how his humanity is slowly covers up by his transformation and how it is slowly disappearing even though he is trying to hold on to it.