Social classes have been drastically downplayed in the last 200 years, but are still a prevalent part of our society. People within higher classes still own large houses, belong to exclusive country clubs, and dress, speak and act with an air of dignity. Stereotypically, people within lower classes still go out to run down bars, live in tenant houses, and are more rustic.
The gentry and noblemen of the 19th century had their designated spaces, and would not dare be caught in spaces for lower classes. The women had certain dress and fabric shops that they would go to, and the men had exclusive gentleman’s club memberships. They would throw parties and balls either at one of their own mansions, or at expensive hotels and inns. They would even only try to vacation in certain areas such as the Bath region in Emma.
The lower classes such as the farmers and day laborers did not have the luxury of being able to join these exclusive clubs, going to said exclusive stores, and vacationing in the country. They did not have the time, the money, or the invitation. People of lower classes had pubs, farms, and commercial clothing stores. They most likely would be mending and making their own clothes whenever they could. They did not have the time or money to prepare or attend extravagant balls thrown in extravagant mansions.
Nowadays classes are less distinct and the lines are blurred, but they are still very much present. Wealthier people still have large country houses or multiple, whole floors in apartment buildings in the city. Outside of the city and in suburbs, they belong to country clubs that are really like the old gentleman’s clubs but have expanded to include women and children. Inside of the city, they belong to exclusive committees that can only be joined by invitation. There are exclusive shops that only some people have the money or invitation to shop at. They attend elusive, top secret and exclusive parties now in large ballrooms in distinguished hotels. Men still have their stereotypical dark libraries, scotch and large comfy chairs. Even the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta has the aforementioned room for socializing and drinking.
Lower classes today at least have more time for entertainment, given the relatively recently passed labor laws. They have large department stores, food courts that often give out free samples (and if one circles it enough, they get a meal), public movie theatres, bars and pubs, and clubs such as the YMCA or local religious organizations.
Classes are still defined by wealth, but it is also okay to know where someone’s money came from. There are still rich spoiled kids who did not have to work a day in their life for the luxuries that they receive, but there are also a lot of self made people who have risen to their social and economic status based on merit. Exclusive clubs still allow for the opportunity to network and more often than not, give its members opportunities that people in lower classes may not receive.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Public and Private time in Mrs. Dalloway (Blog #7)
Throughout Emma and Mrs. Dalloway, private time is at odds with public time. This is most apparent in Mrs. Dalloway. Throughout the day’s events, the characters stop and note when Big Ben strikes the hour. Since the concept of public time is still relatively new in the early 20th century, “one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night… an indescribable pause; a suspense before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.” The interesting wording here lies in ‘irrevocable’, as it makes a second appearance in the text; “Big Ben was beginning to strike, first the warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.” This suggests finality; the last opportunity the character has to wallow in that particular hour. The text also hints at this wallowing by describing the sound of Big Ben as if it were a scent, wafting through the Westminster: “It was precisely twelve o’clock; twelve by Big Ben; whose stroke was wafted over the northern part of London; blent with that of other clocks, mixed in a thin ethereal way with the clouds and wisps of smoke, and died up there among the seagulls”. The finality of every hour implies a lack of time; a dwindling away of a finite amount of time. Perhaps this is the dwindling away of the hours leading up to the party, or perhaps the lingering time left in Clarissa’s life.
The strikes of Big Ben play another role in the text. They sit in the text, similar to road signage, marking the forward progression of time, despite the segmented recollection of events. Throughout the narration of the story, various characters often find their idle thoughts drifting towards the past, but Big Ben, as well as other clocks both public and private, play their role in “shredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing” the events of the day into distinctive segments. The episodic recollections of the past are punctuated by the clocks of the present, suggesting public time takes precedence over each character’s private time. Despite these forays into the past, time is still flowing linearly; marching relentlessly towards the beginning of the dinner party. This has a rather odd effect on the character’s private time, which seems to expand well beyond the boundaries of each hour or half hour, as every journey into the past is accompanied by vivid detail.
As stated earlier, despite the characters often daydreaming on a park bench or contemplating party arrangements, public time continuously advances. This struggle between both private and public time can be seen with Clarissa’s growing worries about her party’s success, and the clocks only serve to heighten these fears with every passing hour. It’s quite easy to see the vital role time plays in the story, be it time spent regretting the past, or time spent preparing for the future. Perhaps Woolf should have stuck with the original title of her story: The Hours.
Boy Space and Girl Space
For as long as I can remember there have been designated spaces for boys and girls. Such places include public restrooms or the locker rooms of high school. Although society has a set of rules for children as people grow up society accepts more intersection between the sexes. In the past society still held to a conservative standard of ‘dating’ in terms of acceptability. The social rules for girl space and boy space have become more liberal over time.
In current society there are designated boy bathrooms and girl bathrooms. While some can argue it is sexist because it separates people based on gender we can look at other factors. Efficiency plays a large part in public restrooms being separated. There are stalls and urinals for men but only stalls for woman. This is because a urinal being placed in a woman’s restroom would be useless. If it were sexist then no co-ed restrooms would exist although many do. Locker rooms are another story.
When we think of the locker rooms from high school we see that there is a separation for girls and boys. They are mostly identical unlike bathrooms where we can blame efficiency on the separation. It is safe to assume that the reason is sexist for this separation. Of course, the main reason for this separation is to keep the level of shenanigans from happening although we can’t avoid the homosexual ones due to same-sex locker rooms.
Though when people begin to grow up they make their own decisions on separation. It wasn’t acceptable for a boy and a girl to ever be alone as stated. Today it isn’t really accepted when you’re a minor, but as you grow up you get to make your own decisions. Just last week I spent the night with my friend Megan and we slept in the same room. There is no need for a separation between friends due to the time of night or not having someone else around as a buffer to sexual shenanigans because the taboo of pre-marital sex seems to have diminished.
In the early nineteenth century the social norm was to never let men and women alone together. As can be seen in the nineteenth century novel, Emma, by Jane Austin, Harriett was never alone with Mr. Martin or Mr. Elton her courters. It was unacceptable to be alone with someone of the opposite gender until marriage because of the social taboo of pre-marital sex and such scandals. In current society where there is a limited taboo of pre-marital sex ‘courting’ or dating is usually always done alone and away from groups.
Now we can answer that the reason for men and woman to be separated is mostly the protection from sexual shenanigans. As the times change and the taboo of sex diminishes it seems to allow men and woman more opportunities to have spaces of intersection. As we can see with the development of one-on-one dating or staying the night at a friend’s of the opposite gender. The only true question is what is causing the change in the opinion of sex from taboo to acceptable.
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
In current society there are designated boy bathrooms and girl bathrooms. While some can argue it is sexist because it separates people based on gender we can look at other factors. Efficiency plays a large part in public restrooms being separated. There are stalls and urinals for men but only stalls for woman. This is because a urinal being placed in a woman’s restroom would be useless. If it were sexist then no co-ed restrooms would exist although many do. Locker rooms are another story.
When we think of the locker rooms from high school we see that there is a separation for girls and boys. They are mostly identical unlike bathrooms where we can blame efficiency on the separation. It is safe to assume that the reason is sexist for this separation. Of course, the main reason for this separation is to keep the level of shenanigans from happening although we can’t avoid the homosexual ones due to same-sex locker rooms.
Though when people begin to grow up they make their own decisions on separation. It wasn’t acceptable for a boy and a girl to ever be alone as stated. Today it isn’t really accepted when you’re a minor, but as you grow up you get to make your own decisions. Just last week I spent the night with my friend Megan and we slept in the same room. There is no need for a separation between friends due to the time of night or not having someone else around as a buffer to sexual shenanigans because the taboo of pre-marital sex seems to have diminished.
In the early nineteenth century the social norm was to never let men and women alone together. As can be seen in the nineteenth century novel, Emma, by Jane Austin, Harriett was never alone with Mr. Martin or Mr. Elton her courters. It was unacceptable to be alone with someone of the opposite gender until marriage because of the social taboo of pre-marital sex and such scandals. In current society where there is a limited taboo of pre-marital sex ‘courting’ or dating is usually always done alone and away from groups.
Now we can answer that the reason for men and woman to be separated is mostly the protection from sexual shenanigans. As the times change and the taboo of sex diminishes it seems to allow men and woman more opportunities to have spaces of intersection. As we can see with the development of one-on-one dating or staying the night at a friend’s of the opposite gender. The only true question is what is causing the change in the opinion of sex from taboo to acceptable.
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Chat Rooms
In class earlier this week, we were all in different rooms. We met in a chat room online at 9:05 am, had technical difficulties, and ended up leaving at different times. Online chat rooms can be very useful when an instructor is out of town or trapped in his/her house after a snowstorm. But there is also always the possibility of the server that is being used crashing, or confusion on the chat members’ parts. There is something very impersonal about not being able to see everyone’s faces, or to know who is talking if one doesn’t know everyone’s names already. There is always that possibility of opening a new window and continuing on some other subject and forgetting all about the chat space.
Chat rooms are useful when one needs to interactively communicate with a large group of people. We had class online this week because our instructor was out of town, and were able to ask questions about assignments and go over key points for projects and papers due in the near future. Students who are normally shy and have social anxiety in class were able to ‘speak’ and ask the questions that they wanted in the chat room without a lot of the fear that one has in an actual classroom. Students could be comfortable in their pajamas but still share the same virtual space as 20+ other people. Students could lay in bed, eating chips if they wanted to but still be “in class”. A new level of comfort, physically and mentally, is achieved with online classrooms.
Where one gains one comfort, he/she loses another. Online chat rooms, at least the ones on T-square, can be very confusing and often break down. Chat rooms can easily get out of hand when there is a plethora of people trying to talk at once. There are also sub-chat rooms that not many people know how to access, and many instructions get lost in translation along the way. There is a delay when sending out information, and one does no have the immediate clarity in virtual spaces than in physical space. Unexpected errors may occur and students may not even get to ask their instructor a question before the whole system shuts down from an overload.
In physical space, students and teachers may forget what their peers say very quickly, but in virtual chat rooms, whatever one says can be read over and analyzed multiple times, so one must really take care with what they say. There are policies against flaming someone else, but that does not stop many students. So even though there is no physical interaction, chat rooms can still cause social anxiety in different ways.
The virtual world also offers an infinite amount of spaces that one can choose from. If one gets in the least bit bored with the chat room, he/she can go off and open another window and get lost in the virtual world for minutes to hours to days. If it’s the latter, then he/she definitely missed class. There is something about the physical classroom that is official, keeps student’s attention for a longer period of time, and is more personal than the virtual classroom space.
Chat rooms are useful when one needs to interactively communicate with a large group of people. We had class online this week because our instructor was out of town, and were able to ask questions about assignments and go over key points for projects and papers due in the near future. Students who are normally shy and have social anxiety in class were able to ‘speak’ and ask the questions that they wanted in the chat room without a lot of the fear that one has in an actual classroom. Students could be comfortable in their pajamas but still share the same virtual space as 20+ other people. Students could lay in bed, eating chips if they wanted to but still be “in class”. A new level of comfort, physically and mentally, is achieved with online classrooms.
Where one gains one comfort, he/she loses another. Online chat rooms, at least the ones on T-square, can be very confusing and often break down. Chat rooms can easily get out of hand when there is a plethora of people trying to talk at once. There are also sub-chat rooms that not many people know how to access, and many instructions get lost in translation along the way. There is a delay when sending out information, and one does no have the immediate clarity in virtual spaces than in physical space. Unexpected errors may occur and students may not even get to ask their instructor a question before the whole system shuts down from an overload.
In physical space, students and teachers may forget what their peers say very quickly, but in virtual chat rooms, whatever one says can be read over and analyzed multiple times, so one must really take care with what they say. There are policies against flaming someone else, but that does not stop many students. So even though there is no physical interaction, chat rooms can still cause social anxiety in different ways.
The virtual world also offers an infinite amount of spaces that one can choose from. If one gets in the least bit bored with the chat room, he/she can go off and open another window and get lost in the virtual world for minutes to hours to days. If it’s the latter, then he/she definitely missed class. There is something about the physical classroom that is official, keeps student’s attention for a longer period of time, and is more personal than the virtual classroom space.
Technology and the Online Classroom
With current technology we are able to manipulate space and time in convenient ways. For example this week my English class was held online via a chat room. Class was very different sitting at a desk in the student lounge with the comfort and abilities I would have outside of class. The technology manipulated space by allowing me to be in both physical and virtual spaces at the same time. Also with every piece of information transferred being logged in chat rather than spoken, time was manipulated.
I was able to use all of my comforts that I was normally not allowed use in class. I ate my breakfast while listening to music and vaguely paying attention to class. Though I was able to capture everything in class while multitasking. This was because instead of having to listen to the professor I was able to simply read the chat log and I would be caught up.
Being in both spaces at once allowed for me to lose a certain perception. I was both in class (virtually) and away from class (physically) at the same time. It allowed for a somewhat awkward feel of the class. The awkward feeling stemmed from not being in a classroom setting I tend to forget what I am suppose to be focusing the majority of my attention on. I was caught between two worlds that of my surrounding and that of my computer ‘window’. Having to bridge the gap of the two worlds every few minutes probably allowed for more of a loss than a gain.
With the logged conversations time seemed to be more controllable. Even though new pieces of information were added to the logs which allowed being able to see a progression of time, there still existed the ability to go back and read previous statements. There is nothing wrong with being able to manipulate time like this; in a way it allowed me to create time. I was able to do other things while class was going on and still get the information I needed, whenever I needed it.
The subject matter covered during the online class session was pretty easy. We simply went over an assignment sheet and asked questions or got clarification. I believe if I were taking a physics class I would pay full attention to the chat room and the only difference that being online would give is a distraction. There are too many opportunities and distractions online which is why I believe there is a reason for classrooms.
What happens when you hold a class online? Simply you allow students to have even more distractions than normal at hand. Although the students can go back and read the log they won’t get the full effect unless they are paying tentative attention. I could have simply logged on and got credit for attendance and return to sleep. The main benefits I see with the classes online are being able to reach people at vast range of distances.
I was able to use all of my comforts that I was normally not allowed use in class. I ate my breakfast while listening to music and vaguely paying attention to class. Though I was able to capture everything in class while multitasking. This was because instead of having to listen to the professor I was able to simply read the chat log and I would be caught up.
Being in both spaces at once allowed for me to lose a certain perception. I was both in class (virtually) and away from class (physically) at the same time. It allowed for a somewhat awkward feel of the class. The awkward feeling stemmed from not being in a classroom setting I tend to forget what I am suppose to be focusing the majority of my attention on. I was caught between two worlds that of my surrounding and that of my computer ‘window’. Having to bridge the gap of the two worlds every few minutes probably allowed for more of a loss than a gain.
With the logged conversations time seemed to be more controllable. Even though new pieces of information were added to the logs which allowed being able to see a progression of time, there still existed the ability to go back and read previous statements. There is nothing wrong with being able to manipulate time like this; in a way it allowed me to create time. I was able to do other things while class was going on and still get the information I needed, whenever I needed it.
The subject matter covered during the online class session was pretty easy. We simply went over an assignment sheet and asked questions or got clarification. I believe if I were taking a physics class I would pay full attention to the chat room and the only difference that being online would give is a distraction. There are too many opportunities and distractions online which is why I believe there is a reason for classrooms.
What happens when you hold a class online? Simply you allow students to have even more distractions than normal at hand. Although the students can go back and read the log they won’t get the full effect unless they are paying tentative attention. I could have simply logged on and got credit for attendance and return to sleep. The main benefits I see with the classes online are being able to reach people at vast range of distances.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Gender Spaces
Up until recently, women had little to no rights, and were sequestered to the same area to repeat the same mundane tasks every day, while men had much mobility, freedom and independence. Over time, the spaces have become more lenient and close to virtually non-existent in some parts of the world, while in other parts these spaces are as restricted as ever.
Emma displays the mobility of men and women in the early 19th century. Men such as Frank Churchill could go off whenever they pleased to do whatever they pleased. Frank decides to ride horseback by himself one day to London just for a haircut. Frank also mentions in passing his desire to travel, and men of his rank and monetary status could just pick up and leave on a whim to France or wherever they so choose.
Women, on the other hand, did not have that same mobility. Even though not always mentioned directly, it would have been highly inappropriate for Emma to walk around outside of her property by herself. Emma would always have a companion with her, such as Harriet or Mr. Knightly as an escort. If she did not have a friend, she would have to bring a housemaid with her. Women were sequestered to the same house and immediate area all of the time and could not just leave on horseback on a whim. Being alone with another man who is not related to them would be highly inappropriate which is partly why Emma was so insulted when Mr. Elton proposed to her. Even when being courted by another man, women always had a friend with them. Women in the early 19th century and before then were very limited and suppressed.
Mrs. Dalloway, written about a century later, displays a radical change from the 19th century. The book begins with Mrs. Dalloway out in the middle of London walking and window-shopping by herself. Men such as Peter were going off to India and other far away exotic places, and women were left to their own devices. Peter, from Mrs. Dalloway, reflects upon how even women will travel to parts of India and will now shamelessly flirt with whomever they like and do their makeup in front of other men on the ship. The early 20th century led to women’s suffrage and equal rights and the subtleties in Mrs. Dalloway is just the beginning.
Women do not have separate spaces anymore on public transportation and maybe that is in part the reason for the change in behavior. Men could no longer feasibly keep women separated from the outside world and namely other men when public transportation became popular. There are not separate spaces for women on buses like there are sometimes parlors for women in larger houses and separate coaches for women to travel in anymore, and when brought to the level of men, they could start to have some of the same freedoms such as going to get a haircut or window shopping by themselves on a whim.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Emma displays the mobility of men and women in the early 19th century. Men such as Frank Churchill could go off whenever they pleased to do whatever they pleased. Frank decides to ride horseback by himself one day to London just for a haircut. Frank also mentions in passing his desire to travel, and men of his rank and monetary status could just pick up and leave on a whim to France or wherever they so choose.
Women, on the other hand, did not have that same mobility. Even though not always mentioned directly, it would have been highly inappropriate for Emma to walk around outside of her property by herself. Emma would always have a companion with her, such as Harriet or Mr. Knightly as an escort. If she did not have a friend, she would have to bring a housemaid with her. Women were sequestered to the same house and immediate area all of the time and could not just leave on horseback on a whim. Being alone with another man who is not related to them would be highly inappropriate which is partly why Emma was so insulted when Mr. Elton proposed to her. Even when being courted by another man, women always had a friend with them. Women in the early 19th century and before then were very limited and suppressed.
Mrs. Dalloway, written about a century later, displays a radical change from the 19th century. The book begins with Mrs. Dalloway out in the middle of London walking and window-shopping by herself. Men such as Peter were going off to India and other far away exotic places, and women were left to their own devices. Peter, from Mrs. Dalloway, reflects upon how even women will travel to parts of India and will now shamelessly flirt with whomever they like and do their makeup in front of other men on the ship. The early 20th century led to women’s suffrage and equal rights and the subtleties in Mrs. Dalloway is just the beginning.
Women do not have separate spaces anymore on public transportation and maybe that is in part the reason for the change in behavior. Men could no longer feasibly keep women separated from the outside world and namely other men when public transportation became popular. There are not separate spaces for women on buses like there are sometimes parlors for women in larger houses and separate coaches for women to travel in anymore, and when brought to the level of men, they could start to have some of the same freedoms such as going to get a haircut or window shopping by themselves on a whim.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
How much time can be put in an hour?
Many people fall into the state of a daydream every once in a while. That state where you create your own world and what is happening. Or perhaps they fall into a state where they ponder the future or look to the past. Lets define dreamtime as the time that passes in those dreams or moments. How much dreamtime can be covered per unit of standard time?
Daydreams are often very complex. You can control how fast or how slow things happen. The dreamtime is often based on how detailed the daydream. When creating a more detailed world it may take more standard time per unit of dreamtime because how much time it takes to create a world. On the other hand when thinking and creating events to happen in a dream it can be much faster depending on what perspective you’re following. If one chooses to they can make several events or even make time-skips in daydreams, which would cause dreamtime to move faster than standard time.
Pondering the future is similar to daydreaming. This is because you are still creating events, though you may be looking at people you know or events that are going to happen. Which brings us to the main difference between daydreaming and pondering the future. Daydreams are purely created and don’t have to take root in reality at all, while pondering the future has the same logical bounds as the real world. For example you can’t ponder the future in which you will sprout wings and fly, but you can daydream about it.
This leaves us with our last dreamtime, reflection of the past. At least for me it’s the most complex. Lets take for example in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, As Clarissa walks through town she is able to think of the past. If we count reflecting the past as an event it looks as though Clarissa never has a moments rest. Her walk is no longer perceived as a long boring walk through town, but also a walk through her memories. Like Clarissa I often find myself reflecting on the past. There are two ways in which you can reflect on the past either multi-event or single event.
In multi-event one can look to see all the events that happened in a certain period of time. Thus dreamtime of multi-event is moving much faster than standard time. On the other side single-event is more detailed reflection of one event. For example you can analyze anything that happened in one night. Looking at any particular detail to try to figure out the ‘whole story’. I often am analyzing important events between close friends and me. I will look at every word, every sentence, facial expressions, and body language and analyzing that much detail causes dreamtime to move much slower than standard time.
How much dreamtime can we place in an hour of standard time? It seems it depends on what we are doing at the moment. Reflections seem to move slower than standard time, while summaries seem to move much faster. It seems that how much we fit into an hour of standard time is based on how much we want to fit into an hour of standard time.
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Daydreams are often very complex. You can control how fast or how slow things happen. The dreamtime is often based on how detailed the daydream. When creating a more detailed world it may take more standard time per unit of dreamtime because how much time it takes to create a world. On the other hand when thinking and creating events to happen in a dream it can be much faster depending on what perspective you’re following. If one chooses to they can make several events or even make time-skips in daydreams, which would cause dreamtime to move faster than standard time.
Pondering the future is similar to daydreaming. This is because you are still creating events, though you may be looking at people you know or events that are going to happen. Which brings us to the main difference between daydreaming and pondering the future. Daydreams are purely created and don’t have to take root in reality at all, while pondering the future has the same logical bounds as the real world. For example you can’t ponder the future in which you will sprout wings and fly, but you can daydream about it.
This leaves us with our last dreamtime, reflection of the past. At least for me it’s the most complex. Lets take for example in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, As Clarissa walks through town she is able to think of the past. If we count reflecting the past as an event it looks as though Clarissa never has a moments rest. Her walk is no longer perceived as a long boring walk through town, but also a walk through her memories. Like Clarissa I often find myself reflecting on the past. There are two ways in which you can reflect on the past either multi-event or single event.
In multi-event one can look to see all the events that happened in a certain period of time. Thus dreamtime of multi-event is moving much faster than standard time. On the other side single-event is more detailed reflection of one event. For example you can analyze anything that happened in one night. Looking at any particular detail to try to figure out the ‘whole story’. I often am analyzing important events between close friends and me. I will look at every word, every sentence, facial expressions, and body language and analyzing that much detail causes dreamtime to move much slower than standard time.
How much dreamtime can we place in an hour of standard time? It seems it depends on what we are doing at the moment. Reflections seem to move slower than standard time, while summaries seem to move much faster. It seems that how much we fit into an hour of standard time is based on how much we want to fit into an hour of standard time.
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
How Perception of Time Effects Writing Style
Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf are from two different centuries and their writing styles prove how technological advances have changed writing and time. Emma is chronological and slow paced whereas Mrs. Dalloway takes on almost a stream of consciousness quality and is clipped and jumps from past to present and from place to place.
Austen lived in a time when the carriage was the fastest mode of land transportation. Some of her characters lived quite close to each other in today’s standards but only interacted with each other maybe once or twice a year. Austen describes every interaction and conversation between her characters in Emma. Her paragraphs are long and detailed and she analyzes every gesture and word that transpires. One can’t tell the exact time of day but always tell when it is night, day, and morning, evening, midnight or noon in Emma. Austen is precise and displays everything chronologically and does not have any flashbacks but will diverge and give information and detail when appropriate and needed. Austen immediately lets the reader know what Emma will be about, romance and the changing of her characters over time and describes her characters immediately as well either through dialogue or a direct paragraph or two including history, looks and social rank.
Woolf lived in a time when the car, railroad, steamboat and airplanes were making their debuts. Standard time was being introduced and watches accurate to the second were being engineered. Woolf starts Mrs. Dalloway with a flashback and introduces a few main characters with it. The reader isn’t even quite sure it’s a flashback until later when Woolf mentions in passing that Mrs. Dalloway is actually older than eighteen. As said earlier, Woolf writes Mrs. Dalloway in almost a stream of consciousness style. She flashes back without warning, jumps from character to character intermittently and the only reason the style wouldn’t be characterized as stream of consciousness is because Woolf writes the book in the third person. Unlike Austen, Woolf divulges information about her characters in a roundabout, hidden and indirect way. The events in Mrs. Dalloway are not chronological and it is not clear from the beginning of the book what it will be about. Even thirty pages in, it is hard to predict exactly what the rest of the book will be about.
One would think that with the introduction of standard time and the speeding up of time via modern transportation would make modern books more fast paced but also precise and chronological, but they seemed to have achieved the opposite effect. With precise time came the ability and motivation to make books and artwork that are clipped and distorted by time and space. Fast and precise time gave artists the motivation to distort and represent it in unconventional ways. The standardization and change in the perception of time and also space gave artists free reign, and these changes ushered in a new era of writing and artist movements such as cubism, dada and the Edwardians.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Austen lived in a time when the carriage was the fastest mode of land transportation. Some of her characters lived quite close to each other in today’s standards but only interacted with each other maybe once or twice a year. Austen describes every interaction and conversation between her characters in Emma. Her paragraphs are long and detailed and she analyzes every gesture and word that transpires. One can’t tell the exact time of day but always tell when it is night, day, and morning, evening, midnight or noon in Emma. Austen is precise and displays everything chronologically and does not have any flashbacks but will diverge and give information and detail when appropriate and needed. Austen immediately lets the reader know what Emma will be about, romance and the changing of her characters over time and describes her characters immediately as well either through dialogue or a direct paragraph or two including history, looks and social rank.
Woolf lived in a time when the car, railroad, steamboat and airplanes were making their debuts. Standard time was being introduced and watches accurate to the second were being engineered. Woolf starts Mrs. Dalloway with a flashback and introduces a few main characters with it. The reader isn’t even quite sure it’s a flashback until later when Woolf mentions in passing that Mrs. Dalloway is actually older than eighteen. As said earlier, Woolf writes Mrs. Dalloway in almost a stream of consciousness style. She flashes back without warning, jumps from character to character intermittently and the only reason the style wouldn’t be characterized as stream of consciousness is because Woolf writes the book in the third person. Unlike Austen, Woolf divulges information about her characters in a roundabout, hidden and indirect way. The events in Mrs. Dalloway are not chronological and it is not clear from the beginning of the book what it will be about. Even thirty pages in, it is hard to predict exactly what the rest of the book will be about.
One would think that with the introduction of standard time and the speeding up of time via modern transportation would make modern books more fast paced but also precise and chronological, but they seemed to have achieved the opposite effect. With precise time came the ability and motivation to make books and artwork that are clipped and distorted by time and space. Fast and precise time gave artists the motivation to distort and represent it in unconventional ways. The standardization and change in the perception of time and also space gave artists free reign, and these changes ushered in a new era of writing and artist movements such as cubism, dada and the Edwardians.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
How Perception of Time Effects Writing Style
Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf are from two different centuries and their writing styles prove how technological advances have changed writing and time. Emma is chronological and slow paced whereas Mrs. Dalloway takes on almost a stream of consciousness quality and is clipped and jumps from past to present and from place to place.
Austen lived in a time when the carriage was the fastest mode of land transportation. Some of her characters lived quite close to each other in today’s standards but only interacted with each other maybe once or twice a year. Austen describes every interaction and conversation between her characters in Emma. Her paragraphs are long and detailed and she analyzes every gesture and word that transpires. One can’t tell the exact time of day but always tell when it is night, day, and morning, evening, midnight or noon in Emma. Austen is precise and displays everything chronologically and does not have any flashbacks but will diverge and give information and detail when appropriate and needed. Austen immediately lets the reader know what Emma will be about, romance and the changing of her characters over time and describes her characters immediately as well either through dialogue or a direct paragraph or two including history, looks and social rank.
Woolf lived in a time when the car, railroad, steamboat and airplanes were making their debuts. Standard time was being introduced and watches accurate to the second were being engineered. Woolf starts Mrs. Dalloway with a flashback and introduces a few main characters with it. The reader isn’t even quite sure it’s a flashback until later when Woolf mentions in passing that Mrs. Dalloway is actually older than eighteen. As said earlier, Woolf writes Mrs. Dalloway in almost a stream of consciousness style. She flashes back without warning, jumps from character to character intermittently and the only reason the style wouldn’t be characterized as stream of consciousness is because Woolf writes the book in the third person. Unlike Austen, Woolf divulges information about her characters in a roundabout, hidden and indirect way. The events in Mrs. Dalloway are not chronological and it is not clear from the beginning of the book what it will be about. Even thirty pages in, it is hard to predict exactly what the rest of the book will be about.
One would think that with the introduction of standard time and the speeding up of time via modern transportation would make modern books more fast paced but also precise and chronological, but they seemed to have achieved the opposite effect. With precise time came the ability and motivation to make books and artwork that are clipped and distorted by time and space. Fast and precise time gave artists the motivation to distort and represent it in unconventional ways. The standardization and change in the perception of time and also space gave artists free reign, and these changes ushered in a new era of writing and artist movements such as cubism, dada and the Edwardians.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Austen lived in a time when the carriage was the fastest mode of land transportation. Some of her characters lived quite close to each other in today’s standards but only interacted with each other maybe once or twice a year. Austen describes every interaction and conversation between her characters in Emma. Her paragraphs are long and detailed and she analyzes every gesture and word that transpires. One can’t tell the exact time of day but always tell when it is night, day, and morning, evening, midnight or noon in Emma. Austen is precise and displays everything chronologically and does not have any flashbacks but will diverge and give information and detail when appropriate and needed. Austen immediately lets the reader know what Emma will be about, romance and the changing of her characters over time and describes her characters immediately as well either through dialogue or a direct paragraph or two including history, looks and social rank.
Woolf lived in a time when the car, railroad, steamboat and airplanes were making their debuts. Standard time was being introduced and watches accurate to the second were being engineered. Woolf starts Mrs. Dalloway with a flashback and introduces a few main characters with it. The reader isn’t even quite sure it’s a flashback until later when Woolf mentions in passing that Mrs. Dalloway is actually older than eighteen. As said earlier, Woolf writes Mrs. Dalloway in almost a stream of consciousness style. She flashes back without warning, jumps from character to character intermittently and the only reason the style wouldn’t be characterized as stream of consciousness is because Woolf writes the book in the third person. Unlike Austen, Woolf divulges information about her characters in a roundabout, hidden and indirect way. The events in Mrs. Dalloway are not chronological and it is not clear from the beginning of the book what it will be about. Even thirty pages in, it is hard to predict exactly what the rest of the book will be about.
One would think that with the introduction of standard time and the speeding up of time via modern transportation would make modern books more fast paced but also precise and chronological, but they seemed to have achieved the opposite effect. With precise time came the ability and motivation to make books and artwork that are clipped and distorted by time and space. Fast and precise time gave artists the motivation to distort and represent it in unconventional ways. The standardization and change in the perception of time and also space gave artists free reign, and these changes ushered in a new era of writing and artist movements such as cubism, dada and the Edwardians.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Three Aspects of Time
Time can be viewed and reflected on in many ways. You can look to the past and reflect on what has happened. You may look to the future and guess what will happen. Finally, you may simply choose to live in the present and view what is happening now. There is a significant importance of each and a balance that must be maintained.
Being reflective on the past is important. In Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf the main character, Clarissa, often reflects on her past. She is middle aged at the start of the novel and reflects to a time where she was much younger. Like Clarissa, I often find myself looking to the past. I believe it is healthy to look to the past. You can figure out your past mistakes, reminisce on good times, and figure out how to better yourself as a person. Though when looking on the past, it is important not to dwell on negative events; such as, who hurt you or who people used to be. I feel like one should not spend all of their time looking to the past because then they would never look to the future to create something better than their past.
One who looks to the future never sees today, nor tomorrow. This means that as much as you can think of how your choices now impact your future, you’ll never actually attain them. For example, if you set a goal such as becoming a doctor, you will figure out you must go to med school, attain a certain GPA, and participate in volunteer work. Then when you become a doctor, you will probably already have set the goal to be a head surgeon or various other life choices. Not saying that being goal-oriented is a bad thing, but strictly living in the future won’t allow you to experience the present and the joy that comes with it. What are goals worth when you don’t get to reap the rewards of your work?
What can one say about living in the present? It is spontaneous and difficult to do. It often takes a go-with-the-flow personality type. I can’t think of a way in which I could live by thinking solely in the present. Not caring about what has happened in the past, not changing based on past experiences, and not caring about what tomorrow brings. I believe that without looking to the future I would have nothing to live for, and without looking to the past I would have nothing to learn from. While it is important to enjoy what happens on a day-to-day basis, focusing exclusively only on the here and now without learning form the past and dreaming of the future seems a bit foolish.
People should spend their lives in all aspects of time. The past should be looked at as a learning experience to improve your life. The future should be looked at to create goals to give your life direction. Finally, the present should be enjoyed for it wasn’t here yesterday and won’t be here tomorrow.
Woolf, Virginia. “Mrs Dalloway.” Oxford University Press. 2009. Print.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Character Representation
Jane Austen represents characters in Emma quite differently than characters in “Miss Brill” by Virginia Woolf. Virginia Woolf divulges information about Miss Brill slowly throughout the course of her short story and the reader doesn’t know certain details about her until the end. Whereas Jane Austen takes a different approach and immediately describes how her characters look and other people’s opinions of them right away.
Virginia Woolf believes that the character is the most important part of the story. The way that she portrays the character keeps the reader guessing with an open mind because she releases information, details, looks and feelings slowly and indirectly.
In “Miss Brill”, Katherine Mansfield first reveals that the main character is poor indirectly by saying she has worn clothes that she won’t or probably can’t pay to replace and will only pay the small price to fix them when absolutely necessary. Mansfield then reveals that Miss Brill is more an observer than one who makes close relationships with people. The reader knows this because Woolf has Miss Brill set in the park sitting by herself watching the other people who come to the park every Sunday rather than conversing with them or at least saying ‘hello’. Finally almost towards the end, Mansfield lets the reader know that Miss Brill is at least middle aged when a young couple sitting near her calls her old. The reader now knows that Miss Brill has never been married because of her name, and will probably never marry because of what the couple calls her.
Emma immediately cuts straight to the point. Jane Austen starts her book by describing the main character, Emma. Austen describes how Emma looks, her social class, her current situation concerning her governess being recently married and her father’s hypochondria and fear of change. Even though Austen wrote the novel in the third person, she describes Emma’s feelings and thoughts without any reservations or hidden meaning. Once Austen gets information about the characters out of the way, she proceeds with plenty of social interaction between characters. That includes dialogue, physical activity and further character development when Austen describes feelings, thoughts and conclusions that other characters make while interacting with each other.
Woolf argues in an essay refuting a piece by Mr. Bennett that the proper way to develop a character is to release information slowly so that the reader’s prejudices do not immediately cloud their judgment. Both agreed that the most important part of a story is character development, but their opinions as to the how differed. Austen represents the other side of the coin by describing her characters right away and having a myriad of social interaction and connections to further develop her characters.
The reader keeps an open mind throughout “Miss Brill” and starts off hopeful for the future. That hope slowly diminishes for Miss Brill as the reader slowly finds out more information about her. The lack of information keeps the reader interested, involved and invested in the character’s story. Emma differs in that there is really no hope for some of the characters, such as Emma declaring that she’ll never marry. Austen changes the readers mind slowly about some of the characters, and actually changes the characters as the story progresses and that is her way of keeping readers involved. Both methods of character development keep the readers guessing but for different reasons.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Character in Fiction” Criterion July 1924. Rpt. In The
Essays of Virginia Woolf: Vol. II, 1919-1924. Ed. Andrew McNeillie.
New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1988. 420-38. Print.
Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill”. Stories. 1956. New York: Vintage 1991.
298-302. Print.
Virginia Woolf believes that the character is the most important part of the story. The way that she portrays the character keeps the reader guessing with an open mind because she releases information, details, looks and feelings slowly and indirectly.
In “Miss Brill”, Katherine Mansfield first reveals that the main character is poor indirectly by saying she has worn clothes that she won’t or probably can’t pay to replace and will only pay the small price to fix them when absolutely necessary. Mansfield then reveals that Miss Brill is more an observer than one who makes close relationships with people. The reader knows this because Woolf has Miss Brill set in the park sitting by herself watching the other people who come to the park every Sunday rather than conversing with them or at least saying ‘hello’. Finally almost towards the end, Mansfield lets the reader know that Miss Brill is at least middle aged when a young couple sitting near her calls her old. The reader now knows that Miss Brill has never been married because of her name, and will probably never marry because of what the couple calls her.
Emma immediately cuts straight to the point. Jane Austen starts her book by describing the main character, Emma. Austen describes how Emma looks, her social class, her current situation concerning her governess being recently married and her father’s hypochondria and fear of change. Even though Austen wrote the novel in the third person, she describes Emma’s feelings and thoughts without any reservations or hidden meaning. Once Austen gets information about the characters out of the way, she proceeds with plenty of social interaction between characters. That includes dialogue, physical activity and further character development when Austen describes feelings, thoughts and conclusions that other characters make while interacting with each other.
Woolf argues in an essay refuting a piece by Mr. Bennett that the proper way to develop a character is to release information slowly so that the reader’s prejudices do not immediately cloud their judgment. Both agreed that the most important part of a story is character development, but their opinions as to the how differed. Austen represents the other side of the coin by describing her characters right away and having a myriad of social interaction and connections to further develop her characters.
The reader keeps an open mind throughout “Miss Brill” and starts off hopeful for the future. That hope slowly diminishes for Miss Brill as the reader slowly finds out more information about her. The lack of information keeps the reader interested, involved and invested in the character’s story. Emma differs in that there is really no hope for some of the characters, such as Emma declaring that she’ll never marry. Austen changes the readers mind slowly about some of the characters, and actually changes the characters as the story progresses and that is her way of keeping readers involved. Both methods of character development keep the readers guessing but for different reasons.
Citation:
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print
Woolf, Virginia. “Character in Fiction” Criterion July 1924. Rpt. In The
Essays of Virginia Woolf: Vol. II, 1919-1924. Ed. Andrew McNeillie.
New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1988. 420-38. Print.
Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill”. Stories. 1956. New York: Vintage 1991.
298-302. Print.
Blog Post #3 (Chris Autry)
This week we've seen the reverberating impacts that space and time can have one one's social life. In both readings, Emma and Miss Brill, these reprocussions are felt in the character's lives. In Emma, mail plays a vital roll in interpersonal communication. It is also safe to assume that Miss Brill wrote the occasional letter as well. At the time, letters were a proxy in lieu of a visit. This is similar to the tools we have today such as Skype, text messages, instant messaging, and social networking. Letters provided a time invarient way of communicating with distant relatives, friends, and romantic interests. I mention that these technologies are time invarient because the mode of the communication remains the same, with technology rapidly increasing the speed at which these messages travel. Complexity has also been added over the centuries, with voice, then video messaging appearing much later.
Provided their class, both Emma and Ms. Brill would not have thrown the gatherings found in high society and the aristocracy. These gatherings had major social repercussions. One only has to be familiar with Austen's Pride and Prejudice, where balls were the nucleus of social interaction and courtship. The Bennet and the Woodhouse families both landed in similar places within the middle class, unlike Miss Brill who was both older than Jane and Emma. As mentioned in class, once older, single women lived particularly lonely lives. Having this looming over one's head further constrains the social role of women in the 1800s.
Ms. Brill's circumstances in particular had confined her to a restrictive space. Taking account the time period, it's safe to assume Ms. Brill had no available transportation, both public or private. Her travels in the essay consisted of trips to the public gardens, the school where she taught, and short distance errands. The restricted space, as well as her age must have evoked an extraordinarily constricting feeling within Ms. Brill. In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet sought to have her daughters avoid this fate by seeing them 'married off', to a higher social standing, when possible. Similar to how Mrs Bennet tries to make matches for her daughters, Emma herself is a matchmaker.
Works Cited:
Mansfield ,Katherine “Miss Brill” Stories 1956. New York Vintage 1991 298-302. Print.
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice
Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. Print.
What is Age?
There are many categories of age. One category’s “personal age” which is measured based on one’s emotional and mental age. The second is “standard age” which measures one’s age based on the amount of time they have spent on Earth. The third is “age group” which is a classification of one’s aged based on society.
Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill, a short story about an a lady that lives by herself in a small apartment in Paris, shows that people tend to stereotype characters subconsciously. During the beginning of the story Miss Brill’s age is withheld. This allows readers to think about Miss Brill without preconceived notions. Starting out we see through her eyes. She is more excited about everything and seemed to have the youth of a young person. Later on a “couple” calls her old and a new side of her was shown. Immediately she went from this young person full of hope to this very pitiful old lady. When Miss Brill’s changes perception of herself the reader gains a new perspective. She isn’t this young lady that was starting her life, but rather a old lady whom lived by herself in a ratty old apartment. Our sense of hope for her seems to vanished because we immediately assume that old people don’t have time to change their lives.
Age, like time can be defined as relative. Phrases like “She’s a child at heart” come to mind. This phrase defines someone whose standard age is old, yet they have a personal age that is much younger. Their ideals and views of the world may seem to follow their personal age. Another way people tend to classify age is through maturity level. For example look at a boy whose father may have died and thus they had to fill that role for their younger siblings. A phrase coined for such person is “He had to grow up fast”. In reality his time line didn’t go longer than other people, but he traveled along it faster. This gave him a much older personal age.
What decides one’s age group? Age groups are defined by culture. In Ancient times it was unheard of for a woman to not be wed by the age of twelve, yet today in America being married at the age of twelve is illegal. Recently a health care bill was passed in the United States to say that you are still a child until the age of twenty-six. A simple explanation for the change in standard age applied to an age group seems to be the lengthening of one’s life span. Simply if one can live more years they can afford to stay in each age group for a longer amount of standard time.
Can we really define someone’s age in one term? The answer is no, there are simply too many aspects to the complexity of time. One can be considered much older than the years they have and vise versa. Because of the difference in “standard age” and “personal age” there is no such thing as someone’s true age.
Mansfield ,Katherine “Miss Brill” Stories 1956. New York Vintage 1991 298-302.
Print.
Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill, a short story about an a lady that lives by herself in a small apartment in Paris, shows that people tend to stereotype characters subconsciously. During the beginning of the story Miss Brill’s age is withheld. This allows readers to think about Miss Brill without preconceived notions. Starting out we see through her eyes. She is more excited about everything and seemed to have the youth of a young person. Later on a “couple” calls her old and a new side of her was shown. Immediately she went from this young person full of hope to this very pitiful old lady. When Miss Brill’s changes perception of herself the reader gains a new perspective. She isn’t this young lady that was starting her life, but rather a old lady whom lived by herself in a ratty old apartment. Our sense of hope for her seems to vanished because we immediately assume that old people don’t have time to change their lives.
Age, like time can be defined as relative. Phrases like “She’s a child at heart” come to mind. This phrase defines someone whose standard age is old, yet they have a personal age that is much younger. Their ideals and views of the world may seem to follow their personal age. Another way people tend to classify age is through maturity level. For example look at a boy whose father may have died and thus they had to fill that role for their younger siblings. A phrase coined for such person is “He had to grow up fast”. In reality his time line didn’t go longer than other people, but he traveled along it faster. This gave him a much older personal age.
What decides one’s age group? Age groups are defined by culture. In Ancient times it was unheard of for a woman to not be wed by the age of twelve, yet today in America being married at the age of twelve is illegal. Recently a health care bill was passed in the United States to say that you are still a child until the age of twenty-six. A simple explanation for the change in standard age applied to an age group seems to be the lengthening of one’s life span. Simply if one can live more years they can afford to stay in each age group for a longer amount of standard time.
Can we really define someone’s age in one term? The answer is no, there are simply too many aspects to the complexity of time. One can be considered much older than the years they have and vise versa. Because of the difference in “standard age” and “personal age” there is no such thing as someone’s true age.
Mansfield ,Katherine “Miss Brill” Stories 1956. New York Vintage 1991 298-302.
Print.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Distance in the Turn of the 19th Century
In the novel Emma, Jane Austen painstakingly explains and draws out all of the little details and intimations of her characters and their transactions between each other and the immediate surrounding world. Emma highlights the limitations of a world where cars and telephones do not exist. Every letter sent is cherished, communities are closely knit together, and 16 miles takes a day to cover.
For one to receive a letter was a cause for celebration. Characters in Emma would meticulously read, re-read and analyze letters when received. For instance Emma and Harriet copied down what Mr. Elton wrote into a book so that they may read the letter again many times later. When Harriet was proposed to, Austen took the time and page space to note that Emma had read the letter of proposal and realized that it was written by a man, was eloquent but short and conveyed his affections appropriately. Austen took up the page space not to say what was written in the letter, but to analyze the writing style.
When characters receive letters in the book, the whole town finds out about it. Emma herself complains that some letters, such as Jane Fairfax’s, are cause for gossip and are the talk of the town for months on end. People keep their letters on display and allow for all of their visitors to read and then re-read them. Letters are the topic of conversation for days as well.
Nowadays, written letters are not very popular. People will e-mail or use an array of different instant messaging sites. It no longer takes days for one to get news around and e-mails are hardly the topic of conversation for more than a few minutes so that they may be mentioned in passing. Writing is increasingly informal and people no longer need to worry much about penmanship because font can be chosen with the click of a button online. Writing style on facebook isn’t analyzed unless someone decides to send a love letter.
When one comes to visit a home in the novel, it is for at least a week and also the talk of the town. For example when Harriet stayed with friends on a farm, everyone knew about it. When Emma’s sister comes to visit, the whole town is sure to know. Visitors and guests are a large event and call for rooms to be prepared, dining rooms and meals to be made up and parties to be thrown. 10 miles may as well have been a hundred miles. Emma’s sister lives in London, only sixteen miles away, but is only able to visit about once or twice a year.
Distance was very different in the turn of the 19th century than it is today. If one wants to see relatives, they can make all of their travel arrangements online the day before if they so choose and stay in a nearby hotel the next day. Family visits occur often and are hardly the talk of the city except with immediate family members and close friends. Visits usually last a week at most and people will take their guests out to a nice restaurant for some fine dining, but will most likely not throw a party in the honor.
Citations
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
For one to receive a letter was a cause for celebration. Characters in Emma would meticulously read, re-read and analyze letters when received. For instance Emma and Harriet copied down what Mr. Elton wrote into a book so that they may read the letter again many times later. When Harriet was proposed to, Austen took the time and page space to note that Emma had read the letter of proposal and realized that it was written by a man, was eloquent but short and conveyed his affections appropriately. Austen took up the page space not to say what was written in the letter, but to analyze the writing style.
When characters receive letters in the book, the whole town finds out about it. Emma herself complains that some letters, such as Jane Fairfax’s, are cause for gossip and are the talk of the town for months on end. People keep their letters on display and allow for all of their visitors to read and then re-read them. Letters are the topic of conversation for days as well.
Nowadays, written letters are not very popular. People will e-mail or use an array of different instant messaging sites. It no longer takes days for one to get news around and e-mails are hardly the topic of conversation for more than a few minutes so that they may be mentioned in passing. Writing is increasingly informal and people no longer need to worry much about penmanship because font can be chosen with the click of a button online. Writing style on facebook isn’t analyzed unless someone decides to send a love letter.
When one comes to visit a home in the novel, it is for at least a week and also the talk of the town. For example when Harriet stayed with friends on a farm, everyone knew about it. When Emma’s sister comes to visit, the whole town is sure to know. Visitors and guests are a large event and call for rooms to be prepared, dining rooms and meals to be made up and parties to be thrown. 10 miles may as well have been a hundred miles. Emma’s sister lives in London, only sixteen miles away, but is only able to visit about once or twice a year.
Distance was very different in the turn of the 19th century than it is today. If one wants to see relatives, they can make all of their travel arrangements online the day before if they so choose and stay in a nearby hotel the next day. Family visits occur often and are hardly the talk of the city except with immediate family members and close friends. Visits usually last a week at most and people will take their guests out to a nice restaurant for some fine dining, but will most likely not throw a party in the honor.
Citations
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Blog Post #2 (Chris Autry)
At the turn of the 20th century, the great debate over absolute and perceived space raged, ranging from Einstein’s famous thought experiments to the perspective driven art of the time. The advent of several new technologies, such as the automobile, decreased the perceived space between objects, while people migrated to large cities, further decreasing this distance.
Jane Autsen’s Emma shows how limited travel was in the 1800’s. The only two modes of transportation were either walking or carriage (Trains existed, but an extensive rail infrastructure had not yet been established). While considered a snails pace by today’s standards, the carriage enabled the characters to travel from their hometown of Highbury, near
These technologies – cars, trains and planes, effectively decrease the perceived distance between people: a three hour walk becomes a fifteen minute drive. This combination of decreased travel time and long distance, high speed travel is what leads to the decrease in perceived distance. This leads, as Kern writes, to questions about how humans perceive the world around them.
Stephen Kern discusses the concept of relativity as it pertains to space, referencing Einstein’s theory of general relativity several times. The question arises whether or not animals and humans experience the same absolute space, or if the perceived space, and its properties, vary from species to species. A strong argument is made for the relativistic approach, citing the fact that humans have the canals per ear, giving us the ability to sense our position and orientation in three dimensional space, while other animals have only two or one canal per ear. On the other side of the argument, the amoeba is cited. It can only move in two dimensional space, meaning it experiences very little of the absolute space in the world around it, culminating with the simple statement: Just because the single celled amoeba cannot see or detect the stars, does not mean that they do not exist.
This spatial argument extends into mathematics with geometry. Euclidian geometries are based upon human physiology, relying on the correlation between the negative and positive side of an axis and the left and right side of the human body. The symmetry of the coordinate plane follows the symmetry of the body. This is used as an example to show how humans interpret the world around us based on our perception of space. This perception is used in the art of the time as well. Images of the same moment in time, but from different angles, are used to convey meaning.
Works Cited:
Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. Print.Austen, Jane. Emma. Penguin Books, 1996. Print.
Technology creating space and speeding up time
In the current day technology can alter the perception of time and space in our daily lives. This technology is often taken for granted. Transportation technology can allow for the expanding of perceivable space. Also the communication technology allows for a shortening in time. The novel Emma by Jane Austin reveals what our lives would be like without these technologies.
The transportation technology in Emma “restricts” the characters space compared to life present day. Most of the characters moved about by walking and on occasion took carriages to where they wanted to go. This means that the people their options of friends as well as places to go are limited to a walking distance, which is probably a mile radius from their quarters of living. What this means is the people they interact with on a daily basis are the same people. Comparing this with present day where the radius of interaction is around 50 miles rather than 1. You can leave your house in the morning and drive 20 miles to work, 15 miles to a friend’s house after work, and 35 miles back home without even thinking anything of it. If Emma or another character in the novel were to go to London, which is 16 miles from their town, it would be around a daylong trip getting there and then they would have to stay the night.
Having the limited space and thus the same people to interact with was a toll on Emma. She wanted to find a “perfect equal” to be her suitor. Her main problem was there were not enough men in the “pond” she lived in. Compared to the amount of fish in the “sea” we have due to the technology of transportation. Present day we have websites like eHarmony, which allows us to meet people online. This allows the ability to meet people globally. I believe Emma would have a more optimistic idea of marriage if she were able to use the present day technology to find a partner. Although she never is able to find a suitor for herself, she plays matchmaker for all the other people in town.
With our current communication technology time seems to move faster. For example when Harriet was very sick and Emma was trying to check up on her she did so through letters. She had emotional turmoil while waiting for the letters to go back and forth in a matter of days if not weeks between responses. In the current day we have technology where we can call and have not only responses but also a conversation in a matter of minutes. With the additional things that may occupy our time it seems to move at a much faster pace.
How does our world really differ from prior technology? For one the increase in transportation technology allows for the ability to interact with more people and more places. In a sense this is creating space. Additionally with our current communication technology time “speeds up” because the improvement in the speed of interacting with other people and places. The question is how will technology in the future allow for different lives compared to present day?
Citations
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
The transportation technology in Emma “restricts” the characters space compared to life present day. Most of the characters moved about by walking and on occasion took carriages to where they wanted to go. This means that the people their options of friends as well as places to go are limited to a walking distance, which is probably a mile radius from their quarters of living. What this means is the people they interact with on a daily basis are the same people. Comparing this with present day where the radius of interaction is around 50 miles rather than 1. You can leave your house in the morning and drive 20 miles to work, 15 miles to a friend’s house after work, and 35 miles back home without even thinking anything of it. If Emma or another character in the novel were to go to London, which is 16 miles from their town, it would be around a daylong trip getting there and then they would have to stay the night.
Having the limited space and thus the same people to interact with was a toll on Emma. She wanted to find a “perfect equal” to be her suitor. Her main problem was there were not enough men in the “pond” she lived in. Compared to the amount of fish in the “sea” we have due to the technology of transportation. Present day we have websites like eHarmony, which allows us to meet people online. This allows the ability to meet people globally. I believe Emma would have a more optimistic idea of marriage if she were able to use the present day technology to find a partner. Although she never is able to find a suitor for herself, she plays matchmaker for all the other people in town.
With our current communication technology time seems to move faster. For example when Harriet was very sick and Emma was trying to check up on her she did so through letters. She had emotional turmoil while waiting for the letters to go back and forth in a matter of days if not weeks between responses. In the current day we have technology where we can call and have not only responses but also a conversation in a matter of minutes. With the additional things that may occupy our time it seems to move at a much faster pace.
How does our world really differ from prior technology? For one the increase in transportation technology allows for the ability to interact with more people and more places. In a sense this is creating space. Additionally with our current communication technology time “speeds up” because the improvement in the speed of interacting with other people and places. The question is how will technology in the future allow for different lives compared to present day?
Citations
Austen, Jane. Emma London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Blog Post #1 (Chris Autry)
It goes without saying that human beings lie at the pinnacle of social development among every creature residing on Earth. Since the beginning of recorded time, human social interactions have progressed in complexity, and our brains have grown to adapt. The relentless progress of technology – namely, our tools for communication, has decreased the spatial and temporal ‘requirements’ for our daily social interactions.
I recall video chatting with a friend while he was studying abroad in
Unlike the past, where one would telegraph a message and then said message would be rendered to its recipient, we have multiple channels of communication to the targeted individual. If you wanted to contact a parent: you could email, fax, phone, Facebook, Skype, text, or instant message them. All of these channels are both time and distance invariant thanks to the infrastructures we’ve built to sustain them. Nearly every individual has multiple forms of instantaneous communication with which they can be reached.
These technologies allow us to work remotely, catch up with friends, and have seemingly created a state where people are hyper aware of their social surroundings. As Frontline’s Digital Nation has alluded to, it is easy to be sucked into one’s digital life. As anyone who has lost their phone can tell you: disconnected, detached, and remote are all feelings that come to the forefront. Now, imagine a week without an internet connection. How has the need for these devices and technologies affected the human social psyche? Though these systems and infrastructures are redundant, it shows just how reliant we are on them.
Reflection on this posits the following question: Can the brain keep up? Communications technology will merely become faster and more complex with the progression of time, but as the Stanford study in Chapter 2 of Digital Nation showed, the brain cannot keep pace in a multi-tasking environment, especially when one or more social interaction is taking place. This is affirmed when one looks at the danger of driving while on the phone: two simple tasks, when combined, can have disastrous outcomes. It’s apparent now that the brain is not ‘wired’ for this type of activity. So now the crux of the problem lies in whether the developing adolescent brain can develop to work in this high speed social landscape, much as people in the past adapted and integrated the telephone, train, and early technologies into their lives as Kern stated.
It’s easy to see, stepping back and observing a time span much larger than the scope of Kern’s book, that the human brain has re-wired itself to cope with the rewiring of our world. Brain size has increased when one compares a modern human to an early proto human or Neanderthal. Social interactions have driven this development. An individual changed from having a handful of close relations within their own camp and walking distance, to having thousands of combined friends across social networking sites, virtual reality, and IRL.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Blog Post #1 (Matthew Bunker)
With the turn of the twenty-first century the birth of computer’s functions in every day life came to be. Coincidently there has been an alteration in the perception of both space and time. Time has been manipulated by multitasking, while space has been manipulated by the creation of virtual worlds.
What happens when someone multitasks? This was one of the major questions proposed by a PBS special called Digital_Nation. Some discoveries proclaim that multitasking may allow someone to do more than one task at a time. If you just look at the ability to do more than one thing at a time you may be able to say that someone can in a sense “create time” by vertically splitting it; however, when one splits their time vertically there is a price to be paid. Proposed by another fact in this special was that as one multitask they do each task with less effectiveness. With this piece of information we can conclude that the art of multitasking doesn’t create time, but rather waste it without even knowing it.
Likewise by creating virtual worlds are we creating space or ruining it. It is very hard to tell, because the creation of a virtual world allows for the distortion of space. For example you can be in the same room as someone else but in completely different worlds, and the contra-positive holds true as well you can be halfway around the world from someone yet be right next to them in virtual space. Creating space doesn’t seem as dangerous, but it does come at a price. It may decrease the need to travel in order to meet people in the “real world”. Some companies like IBM have people hold meetings in Second Life, a virtual reality, rather than paying for them to fly and meet in reality ("Digital_Nation life on the virtual frontier"). This means that you may never have to meet your colleagues, or you can see distant friends and meet with them in a virtual space.
While sometimes you can see people you already met, you can also make new friends online or even find a romance. Virtual space can be a perfect way for someone who doesn’t have much of a social life in the “real world” meet people and socialize with. As a player of the popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft I can attest to the benefits of a virtual world. It allowed for an escape from the ordinary life where I was merely a junior-high student with few friends. In World of Warcraft I played a priest who was wanted by lots of people for their art in healing techniques, and thus I had made many “virtual friends”. Though playing in the virtual world with virtual friends didn’t seem like it came with a cost rather than the $15 dollars a month happily given in order to keep friends and that reality alive.
Who knows what this bend of time and space holds for the generations of the future. While bending time for multitasking can ruin efficiency the creation of a virtual world may improve it. You must learn to take the good with the bad when it comes to technology. Since the wide population uses technology, there is no way around it. To not keep up with the times is to be left in the past. While adjusting to this current bend in time and space one can only wonder how long it will last before the next bend is created. Will human curiosity never stop and leave this world in a constant change in the perception of time and space?
"Digital_Nation life on the virtual frontier." pbs. Web. 21 Jan 2011. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Blog #1 by Gabriella Alvarez
While watching ‘Digital Nation’, a Frontline documentary on PBS[1], I found myself minimizing the screen and looking at iTunes and eBooks, or just opening up new tabs in my browser. I went to facebook, Google, and the sites for my other classes. I found myself getting lost in the Internet while I was listening to a documentary about how gaming, the Internet and different portable electronic devices are distracting and can cause long term memory and attention damage.
The documentary touched upon how digital natives are getting lost in the gaming world, spending more hours playing and social networking than at work. The Internet and the gaming world have an addictive quality that ends up distorting time for the user. Hours looking at friends on facebook, playing a new virtual reality game, browsing Google, or watching video’s on YouTube and Hulu feel like minutes.
When someone get’s the least bit bored, he/she has the opportunity to pause whatever they’re doing--whether it be homework, making funny photos with the built in camera, or playing a game. Computers and technology now have so much to offer that one can sit in the same chair for days and be completely immersed in the Internet and forget about other needs such as food or water.
The Internet has a sort of magical quality to it, where anything can happen. Whole worlds are created online, such as World of Warcraft. There are other games where people may create online selves either to mirror how they appear in real life or weave a completely different person that actually isn’t a person at all but an elf or vampire or werewolf. People can become whomever they want on the Internet, and converse with whomever they want.
Space and time just don’t have the same meaning anymore. What land barriers are there now that someone in Atlanta, Georgia can look at and converse with someone in Hong Kong, China instantly with the click of a button? How can time go by as slowly as hours when boredom is eliminated?
Nowadays, reading a book doesn’t take students hours to accomplish. They’ll simply go online and look at spark notes or just read certain fragmented passages or abridged versions in the form of PDF documents that will take minutes as opposed to days. And not only can students read online versions, but it is easier for them to read sections at a time of the abridged versions and move on to another task for a while than it is to put down a book and do the same thing. Fragmented versions allow for fragmented time and thought processes rather than one fluid amount of time and one linear thought process.
When one’s mind is flitting from one idea to another in the blink of an eye, the brain is taking in a plethora of more information, and maybe that’s why time seems to speed up. A new, different, ever-changing world should allow for a new, different and ever-changing measurement of time.
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