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Reflecting back on an Insightful Discussion in Class: Global Issues

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Reflecting back on an Insightful Discussion in Class: Global Issues

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The Black Cat explores many underlying Global Issues that the class identified and analysed today.
I was keen on taking 'identity' from Culture, Identity and Community as the Global Issue as I  believe that the story is in the form of a confessional. It reveals, to the readers what kind of an identity the narrator possesses.
Even though the entire story displays the psychopathic traits he has, and the many instances where he showcases his lack of emotions for people and animals around him, one extract that can support this view could be from page 5, last paragraph (fourth line) onwards.
This extract shows how the narrator's true identity comes out in the form of an extremely cruel act of murder- that too of his own wife!
He then proceeds to plan the disposal of his wife's body and he does this ever so calmly. We are taken on a journey through his perverse mind where he comes up with ridiculous ideas to get rid of the body. "Many projects entered my mind... I thought of cutting the corpse into many minute fragments, and destroying them by fire... Packing it in a box, as if merchandise, with the usual arrangements and so getting a porter to take it from the house." He then says, "When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right... I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself- Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."
The reader might forget for a second, that this is his wife he is talking about. The lack of any guilt or remorse for the death of his loved one puts huge amounts of light on his true psychopathic 'Identity'.

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Conflict between Good and Evil (Philosophical)

Effects of Addiction (External Behaviour)

Anger Management (Behavioural)

Perverseness(Psychological)

Irrational (Psychological)

Guilt (Psychological)

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‘Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes’

A look inside the mind of serial killer Ted Bundy, featuring interviews with him on death row.

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‘The End of the F***ING World’

James is 17 and is pretty sure he is a psychopath. Alyssa, also 17, is the cool and moody new girl at school. The pair make a connection and she persuades him to embark on a road trip in search of her real father.

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Improving My Vocabulary from: The Black Cat

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Improving My Vocabulary from: The Black Cat

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Solicit: To ask for
Unburthen: To remove
Succinctly: In a brief, clearly expressed manner
Expound: Explain in detail
Phantasm:Illusion
Sagacious: Wise, good judgement
Gossamer: Thin, cobweb like substance
Tincture: Slight trace of something
Intemperance: Excessive indulgence, especially in alcohol
Scruple: Doubt or hesitation
Peevish: Irritable
Fiendish: Extremely cruel
Malevolence: Wish to do something evil to others
Paltry: Small in amount or size
Equivocal: Open to question
Perverseness: Wicked
Vex: To make someone angry or annoyed
Consummate: Complete
Conflagration: Very intense fire
Pertinacity: Sticking with something or being persistent
Caress: Touch/stroke gently or lovingly
Chimera: A grotesque product of Imagination
Grotesque: Comically or repulsively ugly

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Michelle Obama's Speech at the Democratic Convention (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaKju-TrEmU

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Colin Kaepernick in New Nike ad campaign

"Believe in Something even if it means Sacrificing Everything"
(Annotations done on hard copy of my Learner Portfolio)

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Racial Allegory used in "The Tell-Tale Heart"

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Racial Allegory used in "The Tell-Tale Heart"

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The use of the word "blue" to describe the unnamed narrator's owner's eyes could hint at a possible racial allegory.
The Aryan race, which was considered to be more superior than the others had this unique characteristic that of having blue eyes.
Edgar Allan Poe wrote many of his short stories during a time where anti-slavery movements had begun and people started understanding where they were going wrong. The Abolition movement picked up steam during the 1830s. In the decade that followed, freed African-Americans continued to lock arms with white abolitionists to fight against enslavement. Many African-Americans stood up to the cause and started protesting for their rights, and the others got the courage to escape and running away. This caused a lot of chaos in the country, increasing the crime rates as well.  Many states and regions in the United States started amending their laws regarding slavery.
Therefore, Edgar Allan Poe was impacted by this and took the pain, the anger and the frustration that these young men and women faced in the 19th century as an inspiration for many of his creations. The Tell-Tale heart could then also be perceived differently. The unnamed and seemingly unhinged narrator could be an African-American slave working for a white, old man whose blue eyes represented the 'superior' race that brought the terror and torture upon his or her loved ones, and this made him more upset and agitated day by day. Poe constantly points out at the eye of this old man throughout the story, at one point, even comparing it to be the eye of a vulture, which is a predatory animal which hunts down its prey-and one can observe, once again how cleverly racial allegory is used to showcase the odd relationship between the two characters.

In the end, all his anger, jealousy, pain and hatred for that blue eye came out through the evil act of murder.

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Extended Research into the Mind of a Psychopath- The obsession for Animals.

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Extended Research into the Mind of a Psychopath- The obsession for Animals.

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Psychopaths tend to surround themselves with animals and this is also observed in several short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. Surrounding themselves with animals makes psychopaths feel much more superior as they can manipulate and have control over them easily, without having anything said back to them.
Psychopaths get the opportunity to display dominance behaviour, where they assert their dominance and superiority over them.
One of the stranger characteristics of psychopaths is their choice of pets. Psychologist Jon Ronson says they are almost never cat people. "Because cats are willful," he explains.
It could be very likely that this characteristic of the black cat made the unnamed narrator highly violent and hateful towards the poor creature.

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Extended Research into the Mind of a Psychopath- Amygdala

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Extended Research into the Mind of a Psychopath- Amygdala

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The lack of empathy is constant throughout many of Poe's short stories. This characteristic that the unnamed narrators have could throw further light on the psychopathic traits they may possess.
The latest neuroscience research is presenting intriguing evidence that the brains of certain kinds of criminals are different from those of the rest of the population.
A brain study, published in the September 2009 Archives of General Psychiatry, compared 27 psychopaths — people with severe antisocial personality disorder — to 32 non-psychopaths. In the psychopaths, the researchers observed deformations in another part of the brain called the amygdala, with the psychopaths showing a thinning of the outer layer of that region called the cortex and, on average, an 18-percent volume reduction in this part of brain.

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Extended Research into the Mind of a Psychopath- A Guilty Consciousness

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Extended Research into the Mind of a Psychopath- A Guilty Consciousness

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Psychologists have always assumed that Psychopaths have an inability to feel guilt or remorse about their actions.
A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences put that widely accepted notion to the test. As it turns out, psychopaths actually do feel regret under the right circumstances. What differentiates them from people who don't compulsively act out, the study found, is their ability to use those feelings to make better decisions.
One thing that readers fail to understand is why the narrators in many of Poe's stories are not able to get away with the murders they committed, or why they confess to the cruel deeds right when the police were about to leave. Is it a guilty consciousness that haunts them? Why do they make such uneducated and scrappy choices at the wrong time?
Psychologists say that there is no compelling explanation for why psychopaths seem to make such terrible choices all the time, however, it became clear through several studies that they tend to choose the riskier options and fail to to be able to avoid regret when making decisions, it might explain why psychopaths find themselves behind bars just like the numerous unnamed characters in Poe's works.

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The Troubled Life of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

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The Troubled Life of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

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On January 19, 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe's father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a prosperous tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and later to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled academically. After less than one year of school, however, he was forced to leave the university when Allan refused to pay Poe's gambling debts. Poe returned briefly to Richmond, but his relationship with Allan deteriorated. In 1827, he moved to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army. His first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems, was published that year. In 1829, he published a second collection entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia in Baltimore, Maryland. Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he moved with his aunt and cousin Virginia. In 1836, he married Virginia, who was thirteen years old at the time. Over the next ten years, Poe would edit a number of literary journals including the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best-known stories and poems, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Raven." After Virginia's death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe's lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened. He returned briefly to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. For unknown reasons, he stopped in Baltimore. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of semi-consciousness. Poe died four days later of "acute congestion of the brain." Evidence by medical practitioners who reopened the case has shown that Poe may have been suffering from rabies. Poe's work as an editor, a poet, and a critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit him as the "architect" of the modern short story. He was also one of the first critics to focus primarily on the effect of style and structure in a literary work.

He was surrounded by death of his close ones since a very young age and this must have impacted not only his own mental strength and stability, driving him towards substances like alcohol, but it quite evidently had a major influence on his literary work, because death and murder is seen to be a recurring theme.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TKxXClYKig
This Video showcases the significance and purpose of all the unique syntactical as well as lexical structures used by Poe.
My understanding about how the pace of a story can be manipulated using several techniques, enhanced.
Also, the effect of the em-dashes for example is seen to be used to portray the fragmented mindset of the narrator and/or to add emphasis on a particular phrase. It contributes to the tension and chaos that the readers or the audience in this case experience.

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Breaking Female Stereotypes with Carol Ann Duffy (1955-)  

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Breaking Female Stereotypes with Carol Ann Duffy (1955-)  

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On December 23, 1955, Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow, Scotland to Mary Black and Frank Duffy, both of Irish Catholic descent. Together with her four younger brothers, she was raised in Staffordshire in the West Midlands of England where her father worked as a fitter with English Electric.

She received a degree in philosophy from Liverpool University in 1977. Her first job was writing for television shows, followed by a C. Day Lewis Fellowship to work as a writer-in-residence in East End schools of London from 1982 and 1984.

Duffy's books of poetry include: New & Collected Poetry for Children (Faber and Faber, 2009); Rapture (Macmillan, 2006); and The World's Wife (2000), a collection of poetic retellings voiced by the wives of the famous and infamous. Her earlier volumes include: Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Forward Poetry Prize; The Other Country (1990); Selling Manhattan (1987), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; and her first collection, Standing Female Nude (1985), for which she received a Scottish Arts Council Award.

The collection of poems by Carol Ann Duffy entitled ‘The World’s Wife’, was first published in 1999 and presents stories, myths, fairy tales and characters in Western culture from the point of view of women. Much of literature through the ages and even today is patriarchal, presenting the world from a male perspective. These poems were intended by Carol Ann Duffy to rectify that, to highlight the fact that women have long been ignored or silenced. The poems in the collection are witty, satirical, playful and complex.

Dramatic characters and narratives, voiced with a sharp edge of wit and social critique, characterize Duffy's early work, while her recent collections have wrestled more directly with dark and tangled themes of love.

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Semester 1: EOSA assignment.

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Eshaan Soni Individual Oral (formative question).m4a

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Improving My Vocabulary: From IB specimen paper 

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Improving My Vocabulary: From IB specimen paper 

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Lexis: Vocabulary/Diction
Modality: Tone & Mood of a Sentence
Demotic: Colloquial or Conversational
Buttressing: Supporting or aiding
Imperative: Like an Order
Semantic Field: Category or grouping of words. Eg: Blood, bullets, loss, explosion, screams, etc all fall under the semantic field of War

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- Little Red Cap
- Mrs Midas
- Medusa
- Mrs Lazarus
- Salome

(All Annotations are done on the hard copies)

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Red -https://vimeo.com/38704159
Lazarus -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvzTm1mOCQ

Medusa - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9pr2Xxaagw

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Benetton United by Half ad. Campaign:
http://www.benettongroup.com/media-press/press-releases-and-statements/benetton-launches-gender-equality-campaign-from-india-challenging-social-behaviours/

We See Equal- P & G ad campaign: https://us.pg.com/gender-equality/

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(Annotations are done in the hard copy of my Learner Portfolio)

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Works: Mrs. Faust by Carol Ann Duffy and Money Can by you Love by Barbara Kruger

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Drawing Comparisons: United by Half ad. Campaign and Carol Ann Duffy's Poems from 'The World's Wife'

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Drawing Comparisons: United by Half ad. Campaign and Carol Ann Duffy's Poems from 'The World's Wife'

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Global Issue: Primary- Female Stereotypes and Gender Discrimination
Secondary: Patriarchy being promoted in old mythical tales, children's stories and folk tales
Identity or Beliefs, Values and Education

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Ad. Series by UN Women

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Ad. Series by UN Women

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Ad. Series by UN Women

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Emma Watson: Gender equality is your issue too

Date: Saturday, September 20, 2014

Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a special event for the HeForShe campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 20 September 2014

Today we are launching a campaign called "HeForShe.”

I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality—and to do that we need everyone to be involved.

This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don’t just want to talk about it, but make sure it is tangible...

...I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called “bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents—but the boys were not.
When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press.

When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.”

When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.

Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?

I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.

No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality...

...In 1995, Hillary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today.

But what stood out for me the most was that only 30 percent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?

Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.

Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.

I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.

If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.

If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are—we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.

I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.

Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier.

And for this I applaud you.

We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the "he" for "she". And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?

Thank you.