Passive Voice

Level 1: Directions: Change the sentences below to the passive voice. Children cannot open these bottles easily. These bottles cannot be easily opened by children. The government built a road right outside her front door. A road was built by the government right outside her door. Mr. Ross broke the antique vase as he walked through the store. The antique vase was broken by Mr. Ross. When she arrived, the changes amazed her. The changes amazed her when she arrived. The construction workers are making street repairs all month long. Street repairs are being made by conduction workers all month long. The party will celebrate his retirement. His retirement will be celebrated by the party. His professors were discussing his oral exam right in front of him. His oral exam was being discussed by his professors in front if him. My son ate all the homemade cookies. All the homemade cookies were eaten by my son. Corrosion had damaged the hull of the ship. The hull of the ship had been damaged by corrosion. Some children were visiting the old homestead while I was there. The old homestead was being visited by children while I was there.

Thesis for Analytic Essay

The use of blood in Psycho and the use of blood in Macbeth 1971 differ in the fact that Psycho uses blood as a tool for caring the audience, but it dosent represent a theme in the movie. With Macbeth, blood is a recurring tool that the director used to explore the message of the novel.

Writers Workshop for April 12, 2012

Topic: Writers Workshop
Aim: How is a analytic film essay similar to an analytic literary essay?
WatchNow: In this short film how do words relate to images? Explain with one example.

 In this short film, words are complementary to the images and the sequences being shown in the film. For example, when the child says, "We're going to run away," the next images and video excerpts include a plane taking off, a feather slowly floating in the air, and a flock of birds. Based on this example, one can conclude that the words in this film foreshadow the approaching events. Although they might not relate directly, as in to say that after the child says that, the video dosen't show a grop of children running away from the original spot where he said it. It rather shows a pattern of images that can be transferred back to what the child says.

The Casa de Las Muñecas Experience

As I entered the establishment the first thing that hit me was the luxuriousness of the place.  The columns seemed like they were cut out from the coliseum in Rome, the wooden tiles on the walls seemed too perfectly fit, in general, the atmosphere felt way too fancy.  Add to this Friday night equation the fact that my friend and I were by far the youngest people in the entire establishment.  In line, two women about six feet tall were in front of us talking in German, and a piece of carrot cake cost ten thousand pesos. There's more: there was an elevator man for a place with three floors.  Odd, to say the least.

As the play started I noticed that we had some of the best seats in the house, because the subtitles for the play (the dialogue was in German) were right in front of us whereas the rest of the people had to choose between the neck ache that came from constantly reading something three levels above you and observing the actors perform.

Oh and the play in itself was a spectacle.  In class we are taught to use a certain part of the stage with the people that we are performing with and then leave when our scene is done to stand in the corner and allow the spotlight to be left on the current actors.  In this huge stage there was an actual spotlight where the small cast performed throughout the play.  An actor that wasn’t in the square-lit portion of the stage wasn’t part of the plot, at the time.  Nevertheless, in the spirit of analyzing the play one can notice that even when they aren’t in the spotlight, their actions complement the dialogue and plot that the ones inside are portraying. 

Throughout the entire play we noticed that given the loud phonetic nature of the German language, the actors had the luxury of exaggerating tone repeated times without the audience noticing the change in acoustics I the room.  Why is this a luxury?  One could hear and perfectly interpret what they were saying with there change in tone, if it were silent, and one could only read the dialogue, the entire spirit of the play would be lost.  Overall, the play was a perfect mix between an original screenplay and a classic plot.  The Casa de Las Muñecas experience was unforgettable.

Assorted Gardens

An odd novel indeed: Candide.  A book that was boring at times.  A book that was obscure at times.   A book that ended in a way that left me felling…pissed.  Whatever happened to the philosopher’s ambition to show the world his belief in good?  Some would say it never existed. 

How dare he title the last chapter: “conclusion!”  For God’s sake!  If you’re writing a satirical novel, you can’t just suddenly decide to end the book with a “conclusion!”  The hypocrite that is Voltaire already had the nerve to revive main characters time and time again for no apparent reason, now he decided to simply end the novel.   

“The chief executioner of the Holy inquisition was a subdeacon, and a genius at burning people, but he was not accustomed to hanging.” Pg 134

So not only does he put all religious institutions on a skewer throughout the entire novel, now he says the chief is incompetent.  The miraculous feat that occurred to Pangloss wasn’t a miracle.  He was just lucky that the church’s inept and clumsy executioner couldn’t handle burning the victim because it was raining.

All criticism aside, I took notice on the way that Voltaire plays with the concept of gardens in the final pages of the novel.

“’I also know,’ said Candide, ‘that we must go and work in the garden.’

’You are quite right,’ said Pangloss.  ‘When man was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there “to dress it and to keep it”, to work, in fact; which proves that man was not born to an easy life.’”  Pg 143

Dr. Pangloss, the wise and majestic Dr. Pangloss believes in the Old Testaments’ creation tale.  Wow.  Where did this come from? Out of context this excerpt is not very relevant to the ending of the book.  But given that Candide and his philosopher were simply talking, with no regard for the creation of man mentioned in the Book of Genesis, this really comes out of the blue.  I think the mentioning of Adam’s garden is a way to make the ending obscure, that is to say, there is room for different interpretations.  Voltaire mentions gardens figuratively, it actually has no relation to Genesis or the Bible.  Furthermore, he means to say that mankind has the hard task of taking care of the garden that is earth.  Not in an environmental way.  On the other hand, the priority is politics and knowledge.

I am angry with the author.  He says it all but doesn’t say anything.  Candide was confusing, yes, alas, so it goes…

A Hyperbolic Episode

Candide never disappoints.  By adding relevance to Candide's travels, the author keeps the reader entertained.  Furthermore, he is doing something that is always nice to see.  Voltaire is exposing both sides of philosophy, or both sides of good and evil.

"...he found he could not do without Martin, his philosopher." pg. 96

Clearly, Candide has forgotten Pangloss, and replaced his so-called mentor with this pessimistic companion.  It must have been easy, since Martin is the polar opposite of Dr. Pangloss.

"’Do you think,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other, as they do to-day, that they have always been false, cozening, faithless, ungrateful, thieving, weak, inconstant, mean-spirited, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloody, slanderous, debouched, fanatic, hypocritical, and stupid?’

‘Do you think,’ said Martin, ‘that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could find them?’" pg. 96

First of all, it seems odd that Voltaire apparently picked up a thesaurus, figuratively of course, and put down all the synonyms of scoundrel that he found, in order to generalize human behavior. It's even more absurd, that after an entire novel that persuades the reader to reform and that intends to show the reader the negative aspects of society, the philosopher that wrote it seems to think that human nature will never change.  After such a big fuss regarding God and religion, how could Voltaire even insinuate that human behavior can be compared directly to that of a bird? 

On a different note, Candide's plot has lost all relevance to the point the author is trying to make. This can be proven in the discussion that Martin and Candide have out at sea, whilst discussing the misfortunes of war, a battle starts right in front of them. There is no logical structure that the plot follows. The coincidence, if you will, seems so improbable that it’s as if the entire episode is hyperbolic. 

What about the ending of the novel?  That will be discussed in my next post.  For now, Candide is en route to an obscure yet definitive ending. At least I hope it is.

  

Optimism

In K Billy’s Super Sounds of the 70’s a certain blogger mentioned that Candide had taken a turn for the worst.  The opposite is true in the part of the novel that I have just analyzed.  Voltaire has finally decided to take a leap of faith, as did Candide and Cacambo, to vary from the structure he had been using.  He has switched to a form of adventurous narratives that not only entertain the reader, they show a new, more direct satirical style.  

Of course, Voltaire never misses a chance to lash out at religion.  “A Jesuit sprinkled holy water on us.  It was salt water, and a few drops of the disgusting stuff got into my eyes.” Pg. 65   The irony lies in the fact that it is a Jesuit telling the story.  Yet, he refers to holy water as “the disgusting stuff”.  Furthermore, Voltaire added a hint of sweetness to the salty tale that engulfs Cunegonde’s family.  The Jesuits took the bullet in this part of the novel, as Voltaire uses the story to depict them as horrible creatures that everybody hates and some want to eat.

The adventure: Candide and Cacambo are forced to run away from the Jesuits’ territory after the killing of Cunegonde’s brother.  After that, they embark upon a quest towards Cayenne, where they supposedly will find honorable Frenchmen.  “They had a rough idea which direction to take, but they found formidable obstacles everywhere in the shape of mountains, rivers, precipices, brigands, and savages.”  Pg. 73   Candide and Cacambo are forced to go through horrible endeavors in order to find shelter.  An annex to this excerpt would say some thing along the lines of: ever since Candide was born, he had trudged along only to finally arrive at the ideal place.  Is that what Voltaire would say?  No.  My proposed annexation doesn’t go along with the author’s approach towards writing.  It does however, go along with the plot and the pitiable life that Candide has had.

Finally, when the adventure is arriving at its climax, Voltaire lets fly an idea that I have suspected for some time now. 

“’What Country can this be?’ said one to the other.  ‘It must be unknown to the rest of the world, because everything is so different from what we are used to.  It is probably the country where all goes well: for there must obviously be some such place.  And whatever professor Pangloss might say, I often noticed that all went badly in all Westphalia.’”  Pg. 77  

Voltaire used sixteen chapters to focus on the worst places in the world, and the despicable aristocracy and religious institutions.  In Chapter seventeen he describes the country of Eldorado. He surprises the readers with a utopia.  Voltaire takes power as Candide and describes the perfect place.  It is pleasing to see that Voltaire/Candide sounds optimistic when he says that there must be a place where all goes well.  I hope this isn’t just a period of respite for Candide/Voltaire, as I hope that the book ends on a positive note.