Thursday, December 1, 2011

Satire


      Satire is when someone makes fun of another person to correct them. Satire is used to help someone better themselves using humor. A lot of cartoon have satire. An example of satire would be when I'm having a bad hair day and I can't really tell I'm having a bad hair day. A friend says "Hey nice hair You should really do it more often". It has a hint of sarcasm.

      "The the impotence of proofreading" by Taylor Mali is using satire because he got a spell checker but the spell checker didn't help him spell check anything it just helped him spell words right. He said "So I got myself a spell checker and figured I was on Sleazy Street" which it didn't help because he is still spelling incorrectly. A spell checker can't help you write stuff in your own words it just puts in a word it thinks you are trying to write. he also said "But there are several missed aches that a spell chukker can¹t can¹t catch catch". In that sentence we can see that a spell checker doesn't but things in the order we want it to be in as we can see he wrote things twice.

      In the "Osprey Devours Lion in massive food chain shake- up" the satire is that we usually don't see a lion like that. The osprey would be the one laying there devoured by the lion not the other way around. The lion is being satirized because he is the one that is supposed to eat animals like that especially if the animal is that small.

      Children are being satirized in"Advice to the Youth" by Mark Twain because according to Twain the youth don't respect their parents or their superior, go to sleep late and wake up late, we lie a lot with out knowing how to lie, are careless, and don't read. He gave us advice then says a comment about why the youth should do this like "Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment". Which basically means if the youth don't respect their parents they are proving them right about not knowing right from wrong. He also said "Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before". What this is saying is that once they lie and get caught you can no longer look as a good person. Mark Twain is satirizing the youth because they can give them all the advice in the world but they still won't take it.

       "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, the satire in this story is that nobody is really equal. In this story they try to make everyone equal by making someone pretty wear a mask or something that makes them ugly. "Their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in" this was what they did to ballerinas that were prettier then other ballerinas. Smart people couldn't think because if they did they would start hearing noises for example "Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear." The satire is they made every one equal by making them wear stuff and do stuff no one was really equal they just lowered people abilities.

       In "Reading Satirical Articles Can Get You Tortured, Sent To Gitmo" by Cernin the writer is satirizing the government, the police, and the FBI handled the situation. They sent an Innocent person to jail to be tortured all because of a joke. In the article it said "During his eight-year imprisonment, Mohamed has allegedly been flown to secret torture centres in Pakistan, Morocco, an American-run jail known as the Dark Prison near Kabul in Afghanistan and, finally, to Guantanamo Bay" they sent him to all these places without finding out the whole story. The article also said "Binyam Mohamed, a former UK asylum seeker, admitted to having read the ‘instructions’ after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail" they were so paranoid they did this to someone just because of a joke. The writer did this article to satirize the government, police, FBI, and the CIA, they are so paranoid they are torturing an innocent person.

         This cartoon satirizing the phones and people of today because they could have the same exact phone but because it's a "smart phone" its different. People are so focused on what people are say about the smart phones they aren't realizing it's the same phone. What this picture is saying so your is a smart phone but mines is a dumb phone?
      Satire is making fun of someone or something to make it better or help them. In "The the impotence of proofreading" by Taylor Mali used satire explain that if we buy a spell checker its still not going to help us put the words in the order we want them in so its still not really helping us spell check. In "Osprey Devours Lion in massive food chain shake- up" this article is satirical because it's weird to see a lion like it would usually be the osprey like that. In the "Advice to the Youth" by Mark Twain he is satirizing the youth because even if he would have given them advice they would have never taken it. In "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, the satire in this short story is even if we made everyone equal by lowering their abilities they still won't be equal. "Reading satirical Articles can get Tortured, sent to Gitmo" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, the writer is satirizing the government, the police, the FBI, and the CIA for being so paranoid they accused an innocent person of being a terrorist. We can see that satire is every where from news, to cartoons, and even in books.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Irony

        Irony is when someone say Something but does something else. Irony is everywhere we may not see but it is. Cartoon artists use it to be funny. Teachers use it to make a point. We also see irony everywhere as well. I saw irony once when I was taking the train and there was a poster that said "Help the Homeless" and underneath there was a homeless person sleeping on the floor.
       "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington is a very good example of irony because Richard Cory was a man that everyone thought was happy because he always said good morning. He always had a smile on his face. Everyone envied him because he appeared to have everything the story says "He was rich- yes, richer then the king". In reality he was alone. He was a very sad man so sad to the point of killing him self. This story is ironic because Richard appeared one way which was happy, friendly, and rich all the characteristic of a cheerful person, but in reality he was alone, sad, and depressed.
        In "The Necklace" Guy De Maupassant irony was very important because Loisel was a very poor women she wanted everything. She was very sad because she envied rich people and her good friend Jeanne who was rich. One night her husband brought and invitation to a party she bought  dress but had no money for jewels. She asked Jeanne to leaned her some jewels and Jeanne said yes she showed her all her jewels and let her use any of them.  She like all the necklace but she loved one and Jeanne loaned it to  her but she lost in on her way home her husband and her had to buy her a new to replace the one she lost and spent 10 years paying off the depth. One day Loisel went the park saw Jeanne she had 10 years with out seeing her and told her what happened that night with the necklace. Jeanne told her that the necklace wasn't real. The Irony in this story is Loisel wanted to be rich have nice things but when her rich friend Jeanne lent her a necklace of all the jewelery that was there she wanted the cheap fake necklace.
       The irony in "The House that Slaves Built" by Gardiner Harris is that mostly slaves built the White House and for years no African Americans were allowed in the White House. As time went on people started noticing there was no reason to keep then out of the White House. Therefore more and more presidents started inviting them in even though they were told not to. Today lots have changed Barack Obama lives there with his family.
       It is ironic that so many people don't understand irony, irony is used almost everywhere. Someone so smart like she is should at least have a understanding of what irony is. They make us learn it in school yet there are so many people out there that don't know the meaning of the word irony.
         This cartoon is ironic because one dog is saying to the other i don't know where your mouth have been yet he's mouth is in a toilet.
         I don't think the song is ironic i think its just very bad luck. There are something she says that are ironic like "A non-smoking sign on you cigarette break" but other then the few quotes there isn't really anything ironic about the lyrics. The song may be ironic because she's singing about irony when she herself doesn't know the meaning about irony. " a man turned ninety- eight today, he won the lottery and died he next day" isn't ironic its just how life works.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Compare & Contrast

          "The Fight" by Richard Wright and "The Confrontation" by Raymond Barrio are both very similar but different stories. They each have their own views on standing up for oneself and respecting oneself as well. Even though they have there are similarities they also have the differences. They handled there situation very differently. The characters both didn't let themselves get stepped by anybody. At the end the everyone respected them for standing up for themselves. 
           In "The Fight" a young boy was afraid to start school because he didn't know if the other kids would pick on him and they did. He thought he had to fight to win there respect. In "The Confrontation" Manuel worked very very hard in the hot sun to get payed but his boss always took some money out of all of the workers paycheck. When his boss Roberto Morales promised that this time he wasn't going to take anymore money and did it anyways Manuel couldn't stay quite anymore. These two stories are different because they used different ways to get what they wanted. One used fighting as a method to get respect and the other used words.
         In "The Fight" the young boy only want to be excepted and respected. He didn't want to be pushed around the rest of his life so he stood up for himself. In "The Confrontation" Manuel worked very hard and deserved to get pay what the promised him all he want was respect as well. He also didn't want to be pushed around anymore by his boss so he stood up for himself. These two stories are similar because they both didn't want to be pushed around anymore.
          In both stories the characters stood up for themselves. They didn't want to be pushed around in a place they had to be everyday. They both used different method to achieve what the wanted but at the end the got the respect the hoped for. Even if it risked there job and safety.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Fight

        In "The Fight" by Richard Wright, a young boy started a new school he was scared because he didn't know what would be he test to be accepted by the other kids. As soon as a group of boys approached him he decided to prove him self to the other kids by showing them he wouldn't back down from a fight. One of the kids who approached him asked him a series of questions and he answered back with snappy come backs. The boy asking the questions provoked him a little more until they ended up fighting. After this he was waiting until the next fight to happen so he can be prepared. He even got a weapon but after he had proven he wouldn't back down from a fight everyone left him alone.
       I do agree of what he did but at the same time I don't. Being in a new school can be challenging because I don't know how the other kids will react to me. If I do ever go to a new school the first thing anyone does is put there guard up because some kids will try to pick on me because I'm new. Some kids would try and not to fight but in this case the character chose to fight. I wouldn't pick to fight because fighting usually leads to even more fighting but I do have to defend myself.
       I wouldn't fight like I said before but I would defend myself. Fighting leads to more fighting. Who would want that kind of pressure on them to have to be aware of my surroundings all the time because someone might just pick a fight with me. So sometimes it is OK just to ignore and walk away It isn't that big a deal. If they do hit me or a group hits me, my advise would be if there's only one kid fight back and if there's a group run like wind, only fight if I have no other choice.
      This actually has happened to me well not exactly the way this happened but similar. I was in the 3rd grade and every thing went OK for the first few day but then a rumor started that a group of girls wanted to hit my entire class. Just like the boy in the story I wanted to prove myself to the other kids prove that I was no coward. At lunch time I approached the girls and they looked very scary but I asked them anyway. When I asked them if the rumors where true one of the girls just laughed and said "no we only wanna hit you", so I  asked them when and where the girls never showed up and we never fought.
       What he did wasn't exactly the right thing to do. It wasn't the right thing to do because is was on school grounds. On his defends the kids did provoke him so he did what he thought he had to do. He felt like he had to show the kids that he could defend himself that he wasn't scared of them. If the kids never picked on him he wouldn't have fought.