Exploratory Essay

Work Cited Page

1. “—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse” (Poe, Page 1).
2. “I grew day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others” (Poe, Page 1).
3. “All these experiences had involved the emergence of a wishful impulse which was in sharp to the subject’s other wishes and which proved incompatible with the ethical and aesthetic standards of his personality” (Freud 2212).
4. “But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul” (Poe, Page 1).
5. “… the spirit of PERVERSENESS… to do the wrong for the wrong’s sake only” (Poe, Page 2).
6. “In order to affect a recovery, it had proved necessary to remove these resistances” (Freud 2212).
7. “It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets” (Poe, Page 1).
8. “The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness” (Poe, Page 4).

Critical Research Paper

Works Cited

1. Murakami, Haruki. “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo”. 2002
2. Freud, Sigmund (1909). “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis. “James Starchey Translation, (1955). Clark University.
3. Welch, Patricia. “Haruki Murakami’s Storytelling World.” World Literature Today, 79.1 p55. 2005. University of Oklahoma.
4. JanusxHead_The_Religious_and_Philosophical_Foundations_of_Freud’s_Tripartite_Theory_of_Personality

Critical Research Paper

When I started writing my essay, I had kept the thought in my mind I would do an outline of my writing before I started to write. The outline helped tremendously because I was able to formulate my way of thinking. At first, I thought that this was going nowhere and that it was going to be difficult, however I was inspired to choose a topic when I saw something on television in which the director was critiquing his actors to be more like society.

Writing this critical research paper was different compared to any pieces of writing I’ve ever written. I didn’t really know how I would write my proposal or even begin to choose the prompt. I probably went over through all of the of the prompts and that alone took me about 2 weeks to do. It was tough because there’s so many choices and that choosing my own adventure would be exciting yet frightening at the same time. I realized that I wanted to do prompt 4 because something out of it I found very interesting and it was worth the exploration.

I able to formulate the entire essay in a span of 2 days. Once I had all the necessary information, I was finally able to put it all together. It took a lot of self-edit and peer edit as well. I felt like the most difficult part about writing this essay was the fact that I wasn’t able to make it to any of the workshop classes after school to due class which ends at 4:45pm. Overall, I was able to learn a lot from this writing and from the course itself throughout the semester.

Exploratory Essay

When I started writing my paper, I couldn’t really decide which out of the four stories was I going to write. I guess with all writers, finding your main topic is very crucial.  I read all four of the short stories provided and out of the four, “The Black Cat”, written by Edgar Allen Poe stood out to me more. I read all four stories at 3:30 am and the word mysterious came into my mind because all the stories had very interesting and disturbing plots which I enjoyed for the most part.

I was actually glad that the deadline for this paper was extended because, for a whole week, all I had was a half introduction with a thesis statement that did not even sound like a statement. I had outlines, of course, however, the outlines only got me so far. I was able to find pieces of evidence to prove the topic that I was going to be writing about. I guess when it comes to writing something, what I’ve learned so far is that I really should take more time to actually go into a deeper thinking and make a deeper connection with the text. At first, writing the introduction with a working thesis statement was difficult, however, it all made sense once Ms. Killebrew helped me in revising my statement to make it work. I didn’t really have much difficulty when it came to writing body paragraphs of the paper. I already had a majority of the evidence and I had them paired with each other in order to have my ideas flow from start to finish.

What also helped me in understanding the Freudian concepts were the discussion questions done on Blackboard in Alyssa’s class. The discussion questions helped in a way where I was able to look back into the story and figure why I thought of this. It basically occupied me into thought-provoking questions which constantly kept asking myself as I read Freud’s lectures. This assignment helped me improved my skills, not only as a writer but also as a reader. I was able to do an exploratory essay in which I had to read an entire short story on own and then figure out how it all relates back to Freud’s concepts of psychoanalysis. Overall, this helped me in engaging in Course Learning Outcomes because it’s definitely helped me with my upcoming critical research paper.

Literacy Narrative

When I started writing my essay, I had kept the thought in my mind that I was strongly going to disagree with the fact that Betsy DeVos was being compared to Ruby Bridges. I made sure that I was very critical with what I was going to say so that the readers could also get my perspective about the topic and perhaps relate to it in some way.

Writing this rhetorical essay was different compared to any pieces of writing I’ve ever written. At first, I didn’t really know how I should formulate my essay, nor did I know how I would phrase the ideas that were constantly popping in my head. I ended up just writing anything and tried to see what made sense out of it. After a while, I ended up making sense of it and I finally figured how I could get my point across. As I compared the two illustrations, I made sure to be straight forward and also to be critical in my response that I was strongly against the comparison between the two figures in the illustration.

I added pretty much all parts of the rhetorical practices that we went over in class. Choosing the appropriate genre was difficult since there were so many that could fit perfectly for the two pieces, however I made it work by choosing two simple genres that most readers would feel and sense as they read. The stance of my essay was greatly influenced by most of the facts that I added in the paragraphs. Once I had all my ideas formulated, all that was left was to find the right words to perfectly fit the narrative.

Super Frog: An Outlook on Critiquing Society

 

In “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” the author Haruki Murakami considers the role society plays on a simple man named Katagiri. He is the main character who has lived his whole life with silent struggles. He may be unremarkable on the outside; however, we see that there’s a completely different side to him in on the inside. He shows us that there are just some tasks and duties that a person must take on his whole life, even if recognition and being rewarded is inevitable. In his “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” Sigmund Freud associates defense mechanisms with individuals when responding to social influences. Murakami signifies society as a factor that has a major impact on an individual like Katagiri.

The fear that society put on Katagiri is an impact on his outlook towards life. In “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo”, Katagiri “Yeah, near the entrance to the Trust Bank. Some young guy shot me. In the right shoulder, I think” (Murakami, 7). The nurse then responds and says “”I’m sorry, Mr. Katagiri, but you haven’t been shot” (Murakami 7). Katagiri acknowledges from the nurse that Katagiri was never shot and that he imagined it. According to Freud’s, “Five-Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” he states that “The dream-work is a special case of the effects produced by two different mental groupings on each other – that is, of the consequences of mental splitting; and it seems identical in all essentials with the process of distortion which transforms the repressed complexes into symptoms where there is unsuccessful repression” (Freud 2223). We see the same ideals that Freud states in Katagiri’s situation. As a debt collector, “Katagiri had been surrounded more than once by mobsters threatening to kill him, but he had never been frightened” (Murakami 3). Many times, Katagiri thought that he was the perfect person for the job, if anyone was ever looking for a kill. Since he had no kids or a spouse, he often disregards the threat the neighborhood displays to him. Many times, Katagiri thought that he was the perfect person for the job, if anyone was ever looking for a kill. Since he had no kids or a spouse, he often disregards the threat the neighborhood displays to him. Katagiri’s driving the thought of harm demonstrates the repressed fear that appears in his unconscious.

Societal influences on individuals like Katagiri contributes to their actions. In “Super-Frog,” the Frog says “I, however, can see what a sensible and courageous man you are. In all of Tokyo, with its teeming millions, there is no one else I could trust as much as you to fight by my side” (Murakami 4). Frog in the story, is a part of society who influences Katagiri to make a change in Japan. Even as Katagiri experiences all of this through his unconscious state of mind, he wishes to make a change in Japan. Feeling as if he worked the dangerous jobs in the bank, by working with Frog to save Tokyo, he would then achieve from society the appreciation and sympathy for the things he’s done. Katagiri has the desire to contribute his help to Tokyo. According to Freud’s “Five Lectures,” he states that “All these experiences had involved the emergence of a wishful impulse which was in sharp contrast to the subject’s other wishes and which proved incompatible with the ethical and aesthetic standards of his personality” (Freud 2212). Wishful impulse are wishes incompatible to the ethical standards of an individual’s personality. Murakami portrays Katagiri as a person who often keeps to himself and shows no hint of wanting to make a change in Japan’s society. In order to do so, he must have the characteristics of someone who is brave and courageous. According to “Haruki Murakami’s Storytelling World” by Patricia Welch, it states that “No typical hero, Katagiri has, nevertheless, always acted responsibly and with respect for others and without regard for public recognition. This makes him right for the job because he is “a sensible and courageous man.”

(Welch). The author of this article states that society has a high regard for people like Katagiri. No matter what the era, a man such as Katagiri, is highly regarded in society because of his mannerism.

Society is applied to the human personality. The human personality includes the Id, super-ego, and ego and these three division of the human personality explains the way we make decisions and defines us as our character. The Id could be defined as the part of our personality in which does not have any judgements on value, nor good or evil, and morality. The ego can be defined as a portion of our Id that gets affected through the proximity of the outside world in which we live through its threat of danger. We can define the super-ego as our “conscience” in which it tells us what is right and what is wrong. According to “The Religious and Philosophical Foundations of Freud’s Tripartite Theory of Personality,” this article states that “The most base desires of humans comprise, and are governed by, the id. The second aspect of personality is the superego, which is tied to morality and one’s ability to defer gratification. The superego operates antagonistically to the id due to its operating on the ideal principle” (Janus Head 228-229). In “Super-Frog,” The Id being represented in the story is Worm because as Murakami states that, “But right at the moment, Worm has reached the point where he is too dangerous to ignore” (Murakami 3). Worm is clearly stated as the Id in the story because Worm shows no judgements in good, evil, and morality. The ego in the story would be Frog. Frog tries to understand reality and puts the world before himself. He tries to balance out Worm’s desires with Katagiri’s morals so that he can save Tokyo. Katagiri would be the super-ego in this story because he ideally finds himself in the midst of what’s good and bad, yet he never gets any acknowledgement for the things he’s done.

In “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” the author Haruki Murakami considers the role society plays on a simple man named Katagiri. He is the main character who has lived his whole life with silent struggles. He shows us that there are just some tasks and duties that an individual must take on, even if recognition and being rewarded is inevitable. Sigmund Freud associates defense mechanisms with individuals when responding to social influences through his “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis.” The fear that society put on Katagiri made an impact on his outlook towards life and societal influences on individuals such as Katagiri showed that actions played an important role in critiquing society and its individuals. Also, the way society applies itself to the human personality shows us that the three divisions of personality very much explains the way we make decisions and defines our character through the way society is affects an individual.

The Remnants of Psychoanalysis

“The Black Cat” written by Edgar Allen Poe is a short story with very interesting concepts that are not fitted for the kindest of souls. The story begins with the life of a narrator who married quite early and loved pets as a child. Fast forwarding to his adulthood, the narrator begins to display violent mood swings due to his alcoholism and self-deception, ultimately leading him to kill his pet and murder his wife. The style in which the narrator conveys his story reveals many different things about him. He calls the incidents that have happened as though it was a series of household events, which have terrified, tortured, and destroyed him. However, he is incapable of showing remorse and he fails to see the consequences of causes and effects. In this short story, the conflict between Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic concept of repression which is shown both internally and externally and the concept of wishful impulses are revealed through several unthinkable actions the narrator displays.

The psychoanalytic concept of wishful impulses is shown through the narrator’s actions. According to Freud, a wishful impulse is an individual’s unconscious desire to do something, but they are not able to act upon it because it does not comply and coincide with the norm or to his/her morals. In “The Black Cat”, we see that the narrator was very violent and that these violent acts were the cause of his wishful impulses being triggered, granting him no control. The narrator states, “—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse” (Poe, Page 1). The narrator tells us exactly what the impulses he had dealt with. It was through his “Intemperance” or his lack of moderation when it came to consuming alcohol, that his impulses were triggered. The narrator also says, “I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others” (Poe, Page 1). The lack of control for drinking alcohol further developed the narrator’s unusual change in personality, which is quite disturbing considering the fact that even though many people are bound to turn to alcohol as a way to feel a little bit better, it should never come to a point where you should lose self-control and disregard how you should treat others. Through a Freudian lens, Freud states that “All these experiences had involved the emergence of a wishful impulse which was in sharp to the subject’s other wishes and which proved incompatible with the ethical and aesthetic standards of his personality” (Freud 2212). As Freud stated, the narrator’s intemperance was a wishful impulse in which triggered the change within the narrator. His lack of control made it easy for the jaws of evil to take hold of him, lashing into violent acts which were unsuited with the proper standards of common personality.

Repression can clearly be seen in this short story and splendidly through the actions of the narrator. By paying close attention as to how the author articulates the beginning of the story, we are able to see some causes of internal repression. The narrator says, “But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul” (Poe, Page 1). The fact that the narrator tells us, readers, that he wants to unburden his soul, shows us a sign of repression. As the story progresses, the narrator also tells us readers about “… the spirit of PERVERSENESS… to do the wrong for the wrong’s sake only” (Poe, Page 2). Due to his mindset, the narrator believes that this spirit of perverseness is the origins of being a human being. Having established this mentality, the narrator evades taking responsibility for his actions and manages to comment on his wrongdoings while being aware of them. These examples prove to be the causes of the narrator’s internal repression because they all lead to the narrator’s unthinkable actions.

All these occurrences of repression take place not only internally but also externally. Freud stated in his second lecture of psychoanalysis that, “In order to affect a recovery, it had proved necessary to remove these resistances” (Freud 2212). External repressions are caused by these resistances that Freud spoke of and in Poe’s short story, the narrator displays these actions through his interactions with the two black cats. Furthermore, the two black cats in the story actually resemble the narrator’s consciousness in which he represses. The narrator tells us that, “It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets” (Poe, Page 1). Here, we get a sense of what the cat was symbolized in the story. The cat “Pluto” followed him everywhere he went because of his drinking. The narrator chose to live an unhealthy way of living and turned to excessive drinking and violence that the cat resembled as the part of his consciousness that he kept repressed. In regards with the second black cat, the narrator says, “The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness” (Poe, Page 4). The narrator in this story clearly has no understanding of his own mindset that all he does is lash out because of his ignorance and killed both cats, thus showing how repression was being expressed externally.

The development of Freud’s psychoanalytical concepts of wishful impulses and repression as it is expressed internally and externally is clearly shown by the actions of the narrator in Poe’s short story. The narrator’s actions of illustrates and develops a relationship with Freud’s concepts, proving that his theory on wishful impulses and repression is true. The actions we do whether it complies with our society’s morals or not should be carefully watched over for it may lead to many unhealthy repressed emotions.

There I was sitting in the fourth row, last seat in the back. I didn’t really know what to expect nor did I know if I could handle or even begin to understand what our task was. I looked around the room and saw many different faces. I didn’t know whether they’re friendly or not but at that moment, I guess that’s where we can say, “where it all started”. We were already twenty minutes late since we ended up sitting in the wrong one. We made introductions and our professor gave out a paper with 2 different rather similar looking illustrations. One of them was a painting by Norman Rockwell titled, “The Problem We All Live With” and the other was a political cartoon of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos by Glenn McCoy.

Both the painting and the political cartoon showed different aspects of the same point. The painting had a little girl walking into school being discriminated for many good reasons that she resembled for, and the other showed a cartoon of a powerful woman walking into a school also being discriminated but for negative reasons that she resembled for. Both the publishers of the two pieces of illustrations had different perspectives that they wanted their viewers to know.

The painting showed this rather innocent looking girl named Ruby Bridges. She was an African American who, in the painting, was surrounded by bodyguards. When I first saw this painting, I wondered who this little girl was and what was she doing. I completely forgot who Ruby Bridges was, but my professor gave us a brief review about her. Apparently, Bridges was the first African American ever to desegregate an all-white elementary school. In the painting, Bridges was being surrounded by bodyguards to protect her from the many discrimination she had endured while attending this school. Many of the students didn’t like the fact that a colored person, from that day on had their rights to a better education. So, she became the odd man out. Many objects and hurtful words were thrown against her because of the people’s discontent that she was going to be with them and sitting with them in their classes. On the other hand, the political cartoon of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shows us a multi-billionaire woman, who clearly lack the experience of being the Secretary of Education for schools throughout the country. McCoy published this piece to compare that the same situation of a billionaire lady was the same as an African American child who needed armed guards to get inside of her school.

After looking at the two pieces of illustrations, I could see where this was headed. We were probably going to compare them and give our opinions about it, which in fact I wouldn’t mind doing. “How did I feel about this comparison?” seemed like the appropriate question to start with. Honestly, having a multi-billionaire woman in charge of my education seems a bit worrisome. This woman had no degree of education nor any teaching experience. She never attended a public school or had her kids go to school in them. At that moment, I felt like my education was just going to be run like any other business out there. Our education is important, and it shouldn’t be treated as if it was a business.

Comparing it to a little girl who had to fight to get in to school with other white people made it look even worse. DeVos had her life set the day she was born. She didn’t have to worry about what to wear or what to eat, nor did she ever have to worry about getting her education and getting money. Bridges didn’t have it as easy as her, in fact they live two separate and completely different lives. Bridges spent most of her time at school alone because most of the adults threatened to pull their kids out of that school. DeVos didn’t have that problem, so I really didn’t agree with the fact that DeVos’s situation of not being allowed to come into schools was the same situation as Ruby Bridges.

Others might say otherwise and that both their situations are rather similar. There’s nothing wrong with that since we’re all allowed to express ourselves, I just felt that the painting of Ruby Bridges played a critical role in persuading me as a reader to take her side. Rockwell’s illustration showed the importance of education and the hardships one had to face to get their rights to a better education. I felt a lot more sympathy towards Ruby Bridges’ painting. It made me realize how lucky I am to even have my right to go to school with lots of different amazing people.  It got me to think more about how others could be going through this as well. Not everyone all over the world has the right to a better education and this painting really gives us a non-fiction feel that gets us to talk about topics such as this. The political cartoon of DeVos, looking at it is a bit satire. It’s so ironic that a multi-billionaire woman, who has no experience of going to a public school or even have a teaching degree, would become our nation’s Secretary of Education.

At the end of it all, it was clear on whose side I was on. I don’t know about everyone else in the class but to me, comparing Ruby Bridges to Betsy DeVos wasn’t appropriate nor was it clear to state that Betsy DeVos had the same situation as Ruby Bridges. As a student, I have strong feelings about this because the comparison of the two illustrations was very concerning. We’re all accustomed to interpreting different things and whether or not we have these different interpretations of something, we should still weigh in the facts before publishing it to the general public. Like what the political cartoon did, it caused a major uproar to its audience within the education system. Imagine what that would do to other relatable and concerning topics, especially in this time of ours.

The first day of my FIQWS Composition class started in such a funny way. My friends and I sat down in the wrong class for a good 20 minutes before we realized that it was the wrong class. I didn’t really expect much out of the class and the only thought I had was that this course was probably going to need a lot of writing. The first few days of class, we discussed the elements of a Literacy Narrative and a few days later we ended up writing one. Overall, the experience of writing that type of literature was very exciting because I was tackling a new different style of writing, one which I’ve never done before. I was also able to connect with the images my professor presented and I’ve never done anything like that before, so that was one of the many good things that came out of this writing.

When our Exploratory Essay was given to us, the first thought I had in mind was “Oh great! Another thing I have to worry about.” I honestly thought that this assignment was going to be difficult, however my expectations were proven wrong. We initially had to submit drafts that were peer-reviewed by my classmates. I found this w=very helpful towards my writing because I was able to get more ideas from my friends and I got really good pointers on how to improve my writing.

Practicing how to cite our sources properly was one of the many new things I was able to learn from this course. In our class, we thoroughly discussed the elements that go into the process of writing a cork cited page for any of our writings. When I entered this class, I had only little knowledge of citing my sources. Mainly, that those sources were in-text citations, meaning citing straight from a text. Properly citing wasn’t really focused on in high school, they only taught us how to do in-text citations. College is such a different environment for me now because my professors require us having a work cited page for any of our papers. For the SRP (Summary and Response Paper), Exploratory essay, and our latest paper which was our Critical Research Paper, practicing how to properly cite my source helped me in preparation to cite my source in those papers. Now, I am more confident in creating a work cited page due to amount of practice I had in my Composition class.

In our Literacy Narrative, we practiced properly using rhetorical terms and strategies to express my thoughts and ideas to the audience. Our practice in using these terms, helped me in allowing myself to relay my thoughts and ideas to my audience in a more clear, concise, and a very effective way. In my Literacy Narrative, I wanted to reach my audience in a personal matter. I fixated my ideas on using more emotion and relatively connecting my ideas to the Literacy Narrative topic. I connected the two images presented to us and wrote it in a way in which helped relate itself with my audience’s thoughts. Writing this assignment helped learn how to properly use rhetorical strategies to effectively communicate with my readers.

When it came to writing my Critical Research Paper, we were able to discuss with our peers the difference prompts the assignment required us to choose. Each of us had chosen different topics to propose and in doing so, we were able to get a good sense of which prompt we were going to write about. I’m always open to having my peers and I work and share on each other’s writing because it benefits both of us. The information we get from each other was very informative and insightful, which helped me in developing my research paper. Collaborating with other students that were working on the same prompt I chose helped as well because we were able inspire each other’s writing and extract many different things from each other. Overall, working my peers has been one of the most beneficial things done in this course.

The use of technology played an important role in my FIQWS class because it allowed me to get a better sense of the material being taught. In my FIQWS Content class, we used many different online pdfs in order to open ourselves to various pieces of literature like “The Yellow Wallpaper”, “Eight Bites”, “The House on Mango Street”, and many more alike. This allowed us to address our audience through many different online texts that show many different perspectives of Sigmund Freud’s concepts, which was heavily focused on.

When we did our research for our primary and scholarly sources for our Critical Research Paper, we had to use various databases that were found on the CCNY Library page. When I wrote my Critical Research Paper, I had to make sure of a lot of things such as making sure that the sources I used were scholarly. This made things difficult because looking for scholarly sources took a lot of time and finding the right one that best fit and related itself most closely to our writing was crucial. Using scholarly sources and primary databases, overall helped make my paper to be less bias and inaccurate.

When I wrote my Summary and Response, Exploratory, and Critical Research Papers, I learned many different things that helped improve the way I write papers. I learned how to properly, summarize, analyze, interpret, and synthesize my thoughts to be able to form an argument. Throughout the process of writing these papers, I gained a lot of knowledge about citing properly and analyze text coherently. I ended improving a lot more than what I expected.

Both the FIQWS classes that I have taken this semester have showed me what college writing feels like. It showed me exactly the many expectations my professors have from each of their students. It also showed me how crucial it is to be able to meet the criteria my professors had. I can move on confidently to my next semester’s English class knowing that I was able to learn a lot and improve my writing abilities this semester.