COMET-19

One of the first stories we read this year was The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois, and looking back on it now, I think we can draw some parallels to our current COVID-19 predicament.

The first thing I want to address is how ignorant humans were in both The Comet and our current Corona-virus crisis. In both situations, not only did we know about the potential threat long before it became a major problem, but we also barely did anything about it. In The Comet, the people are laughing and joking about going through the Comets tale around noon, and think nothing of the potential outgassing of the comet (Outgassing is when a Comet releases gas into a tail). From the text, it seems that the people have gone through the Haley comet's tail before without problems, and assume that this pass through will be the same. So instead of all sheltering for the day or wearing gas masks, everyone is up and about when New York City gets gassed and they all die.

For our Corona virus crisis, we were also incredibly slow to respond. Firstly, China waited a few weeks before locking down even after they knew of the virus, allowing the virus to spread to other provinces and eventually the rest of the globe. Secondly, even after China locked down 10% of the worlds population, it took the United states 2 months to enact any pandemic measures. The first confirmed cases in Washington were literally the results of a scientist going rogue against orders to find out for herself. In both these situations, whether it was out of ignorance, or lack of scientific data, preventative measures that could have been taken were disregarded, and mayhem followed.

A key difference to note is that while the sudden death of nearly everyone in The Comet is near irrecoverable for the foreseeable future, Corona-virus should be over soon^tm. Even the worst case scenarios seem to be over by summer of 2021. Although then we'll be stuck in an economic recession so that kinda sucks.

Another more morbid parallel is how screwed New York City is. Literally the entire city save for 2 people were killed when earth passed through the gas tail in The Comet, and as the current epicenter for Corona virus in the USA, New York City has not been treated well.

Sonnys Blues Sentence Analysis

Pg. 45 of Sonnys-Blues

"All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. "


This sentence is spoken by the narrator as he listens to his brother, Sonny, play with his musician friends at a tavern in Harlem. It describes how he personally views music, viewing it as a way of self-expression and as a different form of speaking. I found this strange at first, because from the rest of the story, I had assumed that the narrator looked down on musicians. But here in this sentence, I could see that he either came around or had already respected musicians, but had thought it an unfit career for his brother.

From what I can tell in the text, Sonny has been pursuing and playing music his entire life, and I feel as if this sentence encapsulates all his struggles. Throughout all the years he had been playing, channeling his 'roar' as the sentence describes, no one that ought to have cared about him ever heard it. When he was lodging at Isabel's, they couldn't properly hear his music, as they said "the sound didn't make any sense to them'. Later, Sonny himself describes his music as an outlet for himself to let loose, a way to show the struggles of his life, even if others couldn't properly hear him.

It's also a good metaphor for the relationship between the 2 brothers. The narrator (the older brother) seemed to believe it was his duty to guide Sonny on the right path, or at least what he believed to be the right path. But Sonny didn't want to pursue an education, he wanted to pursue music. And during his earlier days as an aspiring pianist, his brother didn't listen to him. Akin to how people couldn't properly hear the music he was creating from within. 

I also think it's important to look at this sentence in the context of the music genre, jazz. Jazz in my humble opinion is the most suitable music for people to express themselves. In more classical instrumentation, musicians can express themselves through composing, such as Beethoven even when he was deaf, but even he followed more rigid structures. In jazz, everything is free flow and smooth. With improvisation and freestyle solos being such heavy parts of the genre, jazz musicians bend the rules of music to fit them, rather than the other way around. And I think this makes it optimal for people like Sonny to express themselves without rules or regulations.

Growing Pains

I believe the title "Growing Pains", would be a suitable replacement for the title "The Evolution of my brother" by Jenny Zhang. 

"Growing Pains" generally means the physical pains that someone goes through while growing up, but it also has figurative meaning about the pains one goes through as they progress through life. This story, in my opinion, is literally a representation of growing pains. We see the struggles that the Zhang family experiences as the kids grow up. 

In the story, as we follow along with Jenny's Brother's development, I would argue that we have an Evolution of Jenny more so than her brother. We get to see 3 stages of Jenny's development throughout the story, although a little out of order. We get to see a young Jenny who cares deeply about her brother, and then a teenage rebellious Jenny who just wants to get away from her family, and especially her brothers nagging. Finally, we see Jenny as a young adult, whose remorseful about how she acted as a teen, and how she treated her brother. However, the maturing of her brother also exists quite prominently in the story, so I am not comfortable with just renaming it to"My evolution as a sister". With "Growing Pains" instead, it encompasses the growth of both of them. 

This can also be seen in their mother, as we still experience "growing pains" even late into our lives. Jenny's mom seems to be quite unwilling to believe that her kids are growing up. She complains that Jenny is running off at 18 when she herself stayed with her family until 30, and she also complained about Jenny's dad throwing away Jenny's brothers sleeping mat in their room, despite the fact that he had outgrown it. 

Overall by renaming it "Growing Pains", it helps generalize the story to apply to the entire Zhang family rather than an individual member. Or perhaps, "Growing Pains of the Zhang Family" would be a better title. If there is something that my title doesn't capture, I feel like it would be the remorse at the end felt by Jenny (Although I don't think the original title captured that either). 

Duty in Guests of a Nation.

"'You understand,' says Jeremiah Donovan, 'it's not so much our doing. It's our duty, so to speak.' Belcher's head is raised like a real blind man's, so that you can only see his nose and chin in the lamp-light. 'I never could make out what duty was myself,' he said, 'but I think you're all good lads, if that's what you mean." (O'Conner, pg. 299)

This sentence effectively summarizes the entire dilemma in the story Guests of a Nation, which takes place during the Irish war for independence. These sentences, which were spoken right before the execution of Belcher, verbalizes the theme developed throughout the story: The right thing to do isn't always ethical. The Irishmen Bonaparte and Noble are assigned to harbor the 2 English hostages, Belcher and Awkins, but are led to believe that the Englishmen are just prisoners. The 4 become close friends over time, so when they later find out that the 2 Englishmen are to be executed, we see their line of duty conflict with their own personal feelings.

Donovan, a third Irishman who isn't even nearly as close to the Englishmen as Bonaparte and Noble, said during the execution, "it's not so much our doing. It's our duty, so to speak'". Which shows that the Irish have no ill wishes towards the English. By saying "It's not so much our doing", he's deflecting the responsibility of the execution away from him and his compatriots, and instead towards the nature of war.

In response to Donovan, Belcher says, "I never could make out what duty was myself... but I think you're all good lads, if that's what you mean".This quote alludes to the idea that often people don't even truly understand their 'Duty', only that they are supposed to carry out a said task. Often it wars, when armies lose their morale to fight, it's because they no longer see the purpose of fighting. Yet they still do, though not as effectively, just because its their duty to fight for the country.

This story hinges on the idea that what you are supposed to do is not always what you personally feel is right. Once the story adequately develops the friendship between the English hostages and their Irish captives, they are forced into a situation where they have to kill the hostages. This is where the quote takes place and rings the strongest. Of course the Irishmen don't want to kill their new friends, but as stated, it is still their duty to kill them, even if its against their own moral compasses Throughout the scene Noble is trying to get it over with as quick as possible since it's hurting him so much, and Bonaparte cant bring himself to shoot the Englishmen, leaving Donovan the one to kill them. Belcher's quote even shows that he understands the nature of the execution. He may not understand what duty itself is, as quoted, but he understands that his execution is the duty of his friends, and not out of ill will. He thinks it well, referring to them as "Good lads". Awkins is the complete opposite to Belcher, going hysterical before dying.

These situations often do erupt in wartime, as the quote goes "All is fair in love and war", and indeed this story takes place during a war. The rationality of human gets thrown out the window, as the need to win the war (or love in other cases) surpasses all ethics. By interpreting our quote in this context, we can see how the wartime rules override any personal feelings between the 2 opposing sides, and acts against what people might consider right under normal circumstances.

The Machine Stops as a future.

Is the world described in 'The Machine Stops' a realistic representation of what we will eventually become?

Probably not.

I don't think it's at all likely that our world will become the one described by 'The Machine Stops' within the near future. A few scenes in the story just seem a bit stupid. For example, there is no way we would chop down forests for newspaper pulp. Deforestation is quite the problem, but I'm certain that if humans were to kill all the trees, it wouldn't be because of newspapers. Instead, we would be cutting down the amazon rain forest for more cattle ground.

But seriously, we should probably stop burning down the forests, we kind of need Oxygen to breath . With attentiveness to climate change drastically increased, and ever more climate activists,  (Didn't we plant 20 million trees this year or something?), we are making quite the effort to prevent the atmospheric disaster featured in the story, and once some more people get their heads out of their asses, the effort will hopefully pay off.

Another aspect of the story that seems unrealistic to me is the lack of physical activity. While humans can be lazy, we value sports and exercise way too much to become as inactive as the people described in the story. We have cars and bikes, but that doesn't stop people from running track or cross country. Its as simple as the fact that a lot of people enjoy working out, and unless they are all killed off, people will continue to actually move. Human pride and competitiveness also go a long way towards encouraging physical activity. The World Cup is eagerly followed across the globe in countries that don't even compete (Hello China), and cultural sports are played everywhere from a young age. And with so much antagonism towards obesity, the chances of the average human moving in that direction isn't particularly high. Sure, the current 'perfect body' media culture can be toxic, but it's also serving as a barrier against Wall-E bodies.

The most important reason 'The Machine Stops' is unrealistic in my opinion, is because the text 'The Machine Stops' exists. For every single dystopic sci-fi novel we have, the smaller the chance we have of evolving into those worlds. By reading the stories, we get a sense of the horror and catastrophe that might happen if we proceed down certain paths. 'Divergent' warns against genetic modification, 'The Handmaids Tale' warns against controlling birthrates, 'Parable of the Sower' warns against Climate Change, and 'Brave New World' warns against getting lit. With these texts in existence, whenever we try to apply potentially drastic reforms, we can point to them as a warning of what not to do. This can already be seen recently, with pro-choice activists dressing as characters from 'The Handmaids Tale' to protest abortion laws. Wall-E 'The Machine Stops' is a warning against becoming too reliant on technology, which is a theme strongly echoed in modern fiction. Today, there are numerous films and stories about AI consciousness and takeover, and as long as we have literary ways of describing potential technological disasters, the easier it is to avoid them.

If Forster intended to predict the future though, I'd give him a B-. He predicted our modern utilities pretty accurately, such as our internet and smartphones, but he was a bit too drastic in other areas. Which makes sense since his novel is an extremist outlook on a technologically advanced society.
I will cut him some slack, as he wrote the story in 1909, and didn't have the benefit of foresight, but I genuinely think even in the 1900s that there would be a better reason for deforestation than... newspaper pulp.

Of course, this is all speculation, and humans are capable of incredibly stupid things. So who knows what will happen down the line if McDonalds somehow takes over the world and supersizes everyone?