Kyle Howard
English Blog Post
February 27, 2013
Dr. Ellis
Blog Post
“Theology”
by Dunbar, “Tableau” by Cullen, and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” are three
similar pieces of literature if you dig beneath the surface of the actual text.
Both of the poems by Dunbar and Cullen are quite short but do have rather large
meanings. The first half of “Frankenstein” has kept me hooked and I cannot wait
to read the second half. The first half introduces numerous characters and also
introduces a sense of later doom on the main character, Victor Frankenstein. Along
with these three readings I also attended a viewing of numerous short videos
from the group Wide Angle Youth Media. This group helps under privileged kids
make videos about topics that are important to the current youth of Baltimore.
All of the videos had the main theme of responsibilities and rights for younger
people.
Each item
that is being discussed has one main theme and it is a major theme of responsibility.
In “Theology” by Dunbar, The speaker believes in the existence of heaven and
hell and unfortunately this discussion will not be about that topic, but the
fact that the speaker has a responsibility. If the speaker believes in heaven
and hell he/she has a responsibility to be a better person in society in order
to reach heaven. “Tableau” by Cullen discusses two young boys walking down the
street in unison but one boy is black and the other is white. During the time
period this was a huge issue and these boys have committed to walking together
and now they have a social responsibility to not fall to the peer pressure of
the adults who are gossiping around them. This idea is similar to the idea in
the presentation that I watched. All of the kids had a social responsibility
that they wanted to shed light on and they did in the use of the videos they
made. No matter what difficulties the kids faced they stayed strong and
completed the goal that they set out to complete. Just like the two young boys
in “Tableau”, these young people who were part of the Wide Angle Youth Media
were extremely persistent and finished what they started. Victor Frankenstein
holds a different type of responsibility in Mary Shelley’s story. Victor
creates this horrible monster after he had such a desire to create a new
species. The monster is hideous and Victor is upset but the monster also
escapes and shortly after kills Victor’s Brother, William. The murder is blamed
on another character, Justine, who is later killed for the murder of William.
Victor is now responsible for this horrible monster that he has created and he
also responsible for the deaths of Justine and William. Clearly Victor’s
responsibility is not as uplifting as the other three items that were discussed
but he does still have responsibilities no matter how gruesome they are.
Responsibility,
in my opinion, used to be a top priority for so many people in society, but now
everybody is looking for someone else to blame. Society used to work harder
when they were given responsibility and now that entire idea is lost because it
is so much easier to blame someone else. Watching the presentation felt like a
perfect breath of fresh air; these young people took full responsibility for a
social issue and sought to find a way to make it better. What astonished me the
most was the fact that after they took charge of a social issue they continued
to make a short video ranging from two to eight minutes on the topic. These
young people have learned an invaluable trait and that is to take full
responsibility for something they want fixed.
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