Class Notes on February 29th - "Just Do It" by Heather Lindsley

ENGL1102 Notes

2/29/2012

Discussion of “Just Do It” by Heather Lindsley

· Topics from the blog

o Duality

§ Likes Tom but hates Tom

§ Hates fries but forced to like them

o Monopolies

§ Prices up, quality down

§ Can choose quantity

§ Health Problem

o Supreme Court/Government

§ Can be manipulated by corporations

o Metaphor/Allegory of current advertising tactics

o Free Will

§ In any world would a mother shoot their child with a dart gun?

§ People can’t be accountable for their actions

· Questions in class

o What is being critiqued?

§ Capitalism?

· Consumer culture

· Corporations don’t care about repercussions, just profit

§ Chemistry? Science in general?

· Manipulated by companies

· Not always objective

· Unregulated

o Is the exaggeration useful or too much?

o Is the humor/silliness effective?

o Who is allowed to be targeted by the advertising?

Group E

Conner,
Good question, I did not think so because I thought CraveTech already had a strong hold on the community. Although the stock may have fallen at the time, it would have been able to easily recover as people continue to choose to use the products anyway.

Group E

I think "Just do it" has to deal with controlling decisions. What is the right thing to do and what is the easy thing to do. When Chad mentioned the part with Alex thinking about fries. Chad knows they are bad and he hates them, yet they are still compelling to him.

Blog Post Group E

I agree with Marsal, this short story definitely warning against the dangers of advertising and businesses were they to get out of control.  I think that makes it especially uncomfortable is being inside Alex's head while she is affected by the drugs.  We feel sympathy for her as she loses out to the chemicals controlling her.  What happens in the end is just about the worse thing that can happen: complete loss of free will.

Also I found your interpretation of the beginning of the story very interesting,  After taking another look at the first part of the story I agree with you, it does seem very similar to an internet world.  Maybe Lindsley is purposefully trying to make her story even more familiar, or maybe she was just trying to open with a really action packed beginning in order to make a good first impression on the reader.

Blog Group E post

Just Do It is in many ways a hyperbole of our everyday lives. We are constantly barraged by advertisements that appeal to our senses. In the story these advertisements are taken a bit further, they cause a strong craving for the item. I thought this new advertising scheme was scary. Forcing someone to lose all self control and give in to a strong craving is a scary idea. It’s one thing to physically force someone to do something, its another to make them do something through a sort of mind control. There are many far reaching implications of this outside of advertisements. This was what the ending was trying to allude to. I think that those consequences are not the focus of the story. 

The story’s focus is on the power of advertisements and corporations. It is meant to be a warning. The large conglomerate corporations, for example “AOL-Time-Warner-Starbucks Lattepalooza Crave”, are a way to caution us of what happens if businesses are allowed to do as they please. These conglomerates are an exaggeration of what is occurring today; Many sectors of business have become dominated by large conglomerate corporations that have a near monopoly in that sector. The supreme court trial was mentioned to show how the government could, in this future, be bullied by corporations to allow something that clearly isn’t ethical. The chemically induced carvings are also an exaggeration of the current times. In the sense that recently advertisements have become more pervasive. In the beginning of the story it seemed like she was physically in the internet in some sense. The woman with the clipboard was like a pop up window; she came out of nowhere and couldn’t be avoided. To brush her off she had to say that she already signed the bill, the equivalent of pressing yes or ok. The snipers were like websites with advertisements; they try to “shoot advertisements” at you.  

Blog Group E Thoughts

I really liked the way that Lindsley uses contrasting images and ideas in this story.  When Alex gets shot with the dart she craves french fries thinking, "I hate those french fries, so golden and crispy on the outside, so moist and fluffy on the inside."  Then later in the story, during the job interview, she has conflicting thoughts once again, laughing at the interviewer's jokes while inside she is infuriated.  This dualality continues as Alex is revealed as a rebel and yet at the same time is dating Tom and feels some attachment towards him.  I think it really adds to the story.

Blog Group E

In response to Connor's question, I don't think that the press release, had it gone through, would have been very effective against CraveTech.  Like Tom said, people were more than willing to pay for the cure to their cravings, and the release of these cures would not only raise the stock prices back to normal, but possibly to even higher levels.  Overall it didn't really matter too much to the story whether the press release went out or not, if there are chemicals that force you to marry someone against your will, who's to say there wouldn't be chemicals that would outright stop any sort of rebellion behavior.

Blog Group E

I think that it is hard to saw what would have happened to the stock.  It would all depend on how fast the media spread the story and how soon the company reacted, but the potential for a huge loss is there.

Group E - Question on "Just Do It"

How effective of an attack do you all think it would have been if Alex had been able to release the false info about CraveTech's chemicals? Would the stock have dropped significantly?

Blog Group E - Thoughts on "Just Do It"

I definitely agree with Andrew’s thoughts on “Just Do It”. The conclusion of the story made me feel very sympathetic for Alex because she had absolutely no input on a decision which changed her life forever. She ended up marrying Tom simply because he shot her with a dart that made her think she wanted to marry him. This completely neglected her right to make her own life decisions.

Like Andrew said I was surprised when I realized how feasible this future is. The way that the author used possible future versions of current places and companies was almost eerie. People are now driving H5 Hummers which are nearly the size of fire trucks, they eat at a fast food chain which serves awful food and uses a clown as a logo, and companies are now conglomerates of today’s companies.

Class Notes on February 10th - Parable of the Sower and "There will come Soft Rain"

ENGL1102 Notes

2/27/2012

Discussion of Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and “There will come Soft Rain” by Sara Teasdale

· Parable of the Sower

o Interesting that the plot seemed cyclical

§ Acorn was becoming similar to Lauren’s original home

o Some things were different

§ In Acorn Lauren is basically the leader

§ She has more power to spread Earthseed

§ Seemed a lot more sustainable than the original community

· Could be tough though because they are isolated

§ Not ignorant of the problems in the outside world

· Everyone there has experienced how tough it is in the real world

o Bankole said that it seemed like the world had gone back 200 years

§ Shows the reader that the future might be just like the past

§ We have to make good choices in order to make the world a better place

o Ended with a lot of unfinished business

§ Probably not just because she wants to sell lots of copies of the sequel

· Defies expectation of a nice, happy ending

· Puts the reader in the characters shoes because we don’t know how things will turn out

· Such a chaotic reality would be very difficult to wrap up in a nice way

· Similar to the anxiety created throughout the book

· Kept with the diary format of the novel

· “There will come Soft Rain”

o Soft and delicate language

o Strong imagery

o States that nature is apathetic and doesn’t care about humanity

o Written before the Nuclear Age

§ Published soon after the Sedition Act was passed

o Simple rhyming couplets

§ Even kept the same happy, rhyming couplets when war was discussed

o Lots of alliteration and repetition

o Seems like a song

o All of this says that nature will go one happily whether humans exist or not.

o Shows that humans did a lot but it didn’t really have an effect on nature

o Seems to be telling humans that they need to adapt

§ Need to stop violence and connect with nature

o Spring is usually a rebirth, but not in this case

o Tempts the reader to skim through it

§ Possibly how it managed to get published

Blog Group E - Andrew

     I feel that the chemicals shown in "Just Do It" is the most evil way to control someone.  When an oppressive body uses violence or threat to control the people still at least have something to call their own.  They have their thoughts and their actions.  They may choose to not fight back to protect their families or they may choose to try and free their family.  But either way it is their choice.  The same goes for their thoughts.  But with these chemical substances this is taken away from the people.  They no longer choose how they act or what they think.  In my opinion without this their is not really a reason to live.  Under the control of these chemicals you would not be living your life but the life of someone else, the life that another person whats you to live for their benefit.  There also seems like there is no escape when oppression takes this form.  If someone can control your thoughts and consequently your actions, then no resistance will ever be made.  This is a very important aspect in a dystopian society.  The end of this controlling power cannot be seen.  It seems like it will continue on forever.
     This story also seems to be making a commentary on the chemical and advertising companies of today.  While advertising does influence peoples thoughts and actions some it is obviously not to the same extent as the story.  But this is what makes "Just Do It" so powerful.  It does not seem impossible for this to happen.  Companies seem like they will be anything to make a buck, even if it is morally wrong.  The same thing goes for the chemical companies.  They have does some very bad things just to make money.  Things that have an impact on every person on this planet.

Class Notes on February 10th - "The Nig in Me" by Walter Mosley

ENGL1102 Notes

2/10/2012

“The Nig in Me” by Walter Mosley

· People often shy from discussing important topics because they do not want to be perceived as racist

o Can be avoided by respecting different opinions

o Always be open to discussing sensitive topics

o Try to embrace comfort

o Understand your audience, respect them, and think about what you want to say before you say it

o Don’t overgeneralize things

o Ask questions if something is unclear

· Discussion on “The Nig in Me”

o Not as cynical as Bell group

§ Bell said all the other people were against the African Americans, Mosley said a small group of radicals were causing trouble

§ Bell said that everyone only cared about themselves, Mosley showed that people did in fact care about others

§ Bell’s story seemed to have more extreme imagery, Mosley’s seemed more like a normal story

§ Bell’s human race was bad in many ways, not just racist

§ Bell seemed to oversimplify everything that was happening, showed that everything was going wrong.

§ Bell grouped people in very generalized groups, businesspeople, Jews, etc

§ While Space Traders just followed the story without characters, The Nig in Me took time to develop characters

§ Harold had a rebirth in the end, showing that things will recover.

· Other opinion is that nothing has changed even though most of the population has died. Racism will always exist

§ Bell’s story was more of an attack on the current population

§ Bell’s story was set in a world which was much closer to ours, while Mosley’s was a future world

o Points from as cynical as Bell group

§ Both had their own ways of showing cynicism

§ Bell contemplated the different angles and said that the end is dystopia, Mosley said that humans will slowly be stripped down until dystopia

§ Both showed a large divide between the races

§ People were self-serving in both stories

§ Both show how close to reality these societies are

§ Mosley’s ending is cyclical, so everything bad will never stop

§ Both say that things will get bad quickly