Saturday, January 28, 2012

Week of 1/23/12

Arvin Padua

This week we started to talk a little more about Beowulf and it's origins. Back then, people needed that kind of hero to look to. To have that icon of right doings. But it also made me think about Villains. Unlike the villains back then, comic book villains usually have a back story and a reason why they're evil.

For example, Mr. Freeze who was a villain from the famous Batman series. Fries grew up in a family of molecular biologists. When he was a kid, he was fascinated with the idea of freezing animals so they could exist in the future. A little insane, but I've heard worse. He was sent to boarding school where he was detached from society and was miserable.

He met the love of his life Nora and was madly in love. Soon his wife acquired a disease and Fries attempts to pt her in cryo-stasis. In other words, freeze her until a cure is found. He attempts to create a freeze gun which goes terribly wrong and his experiment malfunctions, causing an ice explosion. Some how he survived, but now he can only survive at sub-zero temperatures. So he created a suit to keep his temperature at sub-zero, and uses a freeze ray to rob banks and other evil doings so she can get enough money to create his machine and save his wife.

So basically, this guy is evil because he loves his wife. Why was Grendal evil? Because he just is. He was a descendant of Cain, who which he killed his own brother in the bible, therefore making him also evil. Do you see the difference? Most villains today have a motive for their evil doings. Examples could be to get revenge on the people who did them wrong, to get the greatest treasures, or to change society. But the villains in Beowulf like Grendal's mother is evil because she just is.

I guess I can understand that's how it was back then. Either you were a righteous lamb or God, or an evil spawn of Satan. Though now that I think about it, we do have the Joker. He doesn't really have much of an explained backstory, but in the The Dark Knight movie he was just evil because he loved to see carnage and chaos.

But also, I really do enjoy the class. I like how we all discuss about the stories we read and how we can relate to them. Compared to my other english classes in the past, we just read then come to class and the professor lectures for about an hour, tells us what to read next, then go. I like how we can all give input in the class, and the fact that relating it to superheros makes it more understandable.

WC: 467

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Week of 1/16/2012

Arvin Padua

To be honest, that last time I had a blog was when Myspace was popular. So it was probably during my sophomore year in high school. I don't think you can call Facebook or Twitter blogs, but I guess that doesn't really matter.

When I first chose this class, I was told it was better than Eng 232 because most of the reading in Eng 231 were already covered in high school and the literature in Eng 232 is a little difficult. Especially since most of the readings in Eng 232 are from around the world, it may be hard to understand.

When I first came into class, I noticed there were that there were a lot of people so I assumed that the class was a requirement. I also noticed that the professor was wearing a Captain America emblem belt buckle which made me to suspect he might be a fan of super heroes.

Boy was I right. One of the first things he talked about was American super heroes and I was very pleased. Out of all my professors, I've never met one that had an interest in Batman, The X-Men, Superman, or even know who The Green Arrow was. It was after he called role he started to make a list about what makes a super hero. During both class sessions, we discussed how today's super heroes were violent, had complex personalities, a complicated past, were very attractive, well fit, and a symbol of justice.

What the professor was trying to tell us was these were the attributes of what makes a super hero. It also tied in back to the reading we had to do. Beowulf was the first known poem that told the story of Beowulf, a brave and fearless hero who slayed powerful monsters in Scandinavia. By discussing the list of attributes of what makes a hero, it helped me to understand how people saw heroes back in the 8th century.

When I first attempted to read Beowulf, I had a very hard time to grasp what was being said or what was happening in the story. I actually had to look online to understand who the characters were or what was going on in a particular scene. I learned that these poems were originally read aloud to people in a giant room, so I tried reading the poem again but this time I read it out loud. It was a big improvement and I was able to grasp what was going on.

After I finished part 1, I tried to compare the story to a modern day super hero story. Beowulf was very wordy, especially when it takes a whole page to express how you feel at a certain moment. I felt like I could have summarized the whole reading onto one page. But besides that, I could see why this poem is such a masterpiece. A brave and powerful warrior from a far away land comes to rip the arm off of a demon and rids the people of fear and despair.

All in all, it was a good reading but I would have wished it was easier to read. Especially since my foreign friend is also in the class and he was having trouble reading the story. Maybe the next story or the story after will be easier to read.

559 WORDS