Honestly I wouldnt know what to talk about within my reflection,but I would say Ive learned alot.The most fun I had was the deep critical thinking and the dissecting of texts from tales,myths ,and modern texts.The class was also interesting as the seating was made into a circle in which it allowed one to face the people speaking.I hope the skills of the deep critical thinking sticks with me into the future within other classes that I take at state.
I will keep this post relatively short, as I don’t have too much to say about the class other than I enjoyed it more than I thought. The course took me for a ride from the very first day, as I didn’t know it had anything to do with mermaids at all. But, with that being said, I’m glad I decided to stay with the class as it taught me to think in many different ways I hadn’t experienced before. I was able to grow a deeper appreciation for nature and the environment through this course, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I appreciate my classmates and Professor Pressman for allowing this class to be a break from all the math and sciences of the engineering life.
That’s it, thank you so much for the good time!
Throughout our class there have been several things that have stuck out to me through the readings and in class discussions. However, what stood out to me most and what I learned how to become better at as a result of this class ,was close reading and how to critically analyze the most important information from what I was reading. Close reading allows for me to find the deeper meaning behind what the author is trying to say, it allows for good class discussions, and it will help me in my future as someone who wants to work in public relations (PR).
First, close reading allows for me to find the deeper meaning behind what the author is trying to say. Often times when I read a text, I do not fully understand everything I read initially. By re reading and also close reading, this allows for me to break down and dissect what the author is trying to say. Close reading also helps improve my critical thinking skills, because it forces me to pay additional attention to details in order to figure out what is being conveyed by the author.
Second, close reading allows for strong and thought-provoking in-class discussions. By close reading as a class, I was able to not only share my own perspectives on what I understood from the text, but I was also able to listen and hear from other students and what their own perspectives were on the reading. I strongly believe in-class discussions were beneficial to my success in this class because they challenged me to converse with others and understand different viewpoints that were all interconnected in someway.
Last, I believe that through continuing to practice close reading, this will help me in my future as someone who wants to work in public relations. This is true, because working in public relations requires only keeping the most relevant information apart of press releases, while still being concise and accurate with the information that is being presented to the public. Close reading will ultimately improve my writing skills, and creativity, which will help me be successful in my near future.
What I have learned:
In the beginning of this course, I was very unsure of the course content and what exactly I would gain from this experience. Not in a bad way, but I thought it would simply be a fun class about mermaids (which it definitely ended up being!). However, I also gained much more than just an enjoyable period. I learned a lot about critical thinking and close reading, especially considering stories I have already had prior knowledge of like the Little Mermaid. I also learned a lot about human perspective and how everything is subjective. For example, everything depends on having an “other” in order to exist, like we know something is what it is based on the fact that we know it is not another thing. The most interesting and impactful idea that I have taken from the course I think is the importance of the ocean. We have talked a lot about territorializing and land-centric ideas with roots in our very language, thus shaping our worldview to elevate human importance. I learned that I definitely have fallen to that skewed worldview all of my life, and finally learning to shift my entire perspective is impactful when trying to open my mind and branch out of my limited views. This skill is transferable far beyond this class and shifting from land-centric to inclusive, fluid, thinking about the ocean, but it will also aid me later on in life when trying to see from other people’s perspectives who share different experiences and identities than me.
As I read through Chapter 5-7 There seems to be a question asked if a culture should be solely dependant on the past or the actions of current culture.It seems much of the mermaids value tradition and history ,while yetu herself continues to wish to live in the present like many of her species.The actions of her entire community seem to bring these doubts where Yetu questions their origins by saying that “how strange we wouldve looked to the first mothers:wild screaming fish creatures,scaled and boneless”.This statement begs the question if the amount of time changes a culture entirely and if their still the same culture from the ones they started from.This draws a parallel to the blue humanity’s in which should the investment that we have on the oceans be based on previous research where lacked the methods of investigation or should one start from the beggining in order to truly understand the oceans since they are everchanging.As yetu leaves her species it seems to show a close point of similarity to wanjinru where they seem to be running towards a history to relieve it and yetu is running toward a new history to learn from it.Yetu herself seems to be a different species all together from the wajinru and seems to be yearning for a place where there could be like minded individuals like her.
In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, we see life from under the sea through the youthful and curious eyes of the little mermaid. Several of her experiences are enhanced through the use of color, descriptive nature, and her connection to nature, such as the one she has with her garden. The little mermaid’s garden is what grounds her in her environment, rooting her existence in her natural world, which also serves as a place for her to find emotional comfort and refuge. The recurring use of the color red throughout Andersen’s story is used as a literary device to flag transformation, danger, and perhaps the most obvious, love. As red is also the color of human blood, the repetitive use of red indicates the little mermaid’s anticipation and desire to join the upper world, and be one with the humans. Color is correlated with emotion, and is indicative of the state of an individuals well being. The color red is indicative of the little mermaid’s development, not only within the sea, but as well as on land. It is important to look into the use of the color red throughout the story because we are able to better visualize and understand the emotional turmoil and pain that the little mermaid endures, almost always being described right before huge life altering events, marking transformations within her life as she has always known it, towards the unnatural state of being human.
Delving into this Chapter of River Solomon’s The Deep, I notice that it starts off in a hectic moment where Yetu is parting ways from the wajinru and is consistently facing obstacles that makes it that much more difficult to achieve or journey, “Yetu focused on making sense of her surroundings. There was nothing solid that she could see. No land. No boats. No birds. Just water and sky” (pp. 69). This internal struggle Yetu faced has now been matched with the harsh and unpredictable environment which reflects the overall erratic experience when getting caught up with other societies and abilities (breathing out of water).
This sort of tense moment then shifts to a more mournful tone when Yetu meets the last member of the Oshuben tribe named “Oori” which mentions how everything and everyone they once knew has either passed on or has been destroyed. Not only did this bring back memories of class where the correlation was made between Yetu (and now Oori) and people that ultimately have to carry the generational trauma for ages, sometimes for the rest of their lives. The difference in the way Oori and Yetu have processed their past experiences is reminiscent of studies where two completely different people can go through the same events and or treatment, yet interpret them in their own unique ways. The pain and the suffering aspects of life seems to consistently occur with many believing that it is “unfair,” but as Yetu soon realizes and comes to term with, the best way to respond to this resistance is to face it head on.
In this passage from The Deep, Rivers Solomon shows how communal memory can become a bodily burden, and how Yetu’s violent hunt is less about killing a shark than reclaiming a self that the role of Historian has swallowed.
The scene begins with memory already invading the present: “Those years were far behind her, but still, she could not shake the memories” (100). The repetition of “still” and the flat cadence of the sentence place us in exhaustion. As a Historian, Yetu carries the entire people’s past; her hunt is a ritual to push that weight out of her body. She is precise about the target and motive: “A frilled shark. Perfection.” The single-word judgment reads like a diagnosis. The shark is not a trophy but a tool: something ancient and tough enough to absorb her offering of pain.
The close, physical writing turns history into touch: she can “feel it on her skin,” and later she “let the blood cover her.” Memory isn’t abstract; it sticks to the body, stains it, and circulates like current. That is why the sacrifice matters. She names her aim without metaphor: “What she desired was to be free of History.” The capital H and the plain diction cut through the gore, the real fight is against a role that erases her singularity.
When the wajinru arrive, calling “Historian,” the title itself sounds like a chain. Solomon leaves us with a question: what do communities owe the people who carry their pain, and what do those carriers owe themselves? The passage argues that survival sometimes begins with refusing to shed an identity that keeps you alive but stops you from living.
Plan For Final: My plan for the final essay is to combine both of my midterm essays together. I would like to build an analytical close-read essay that connects both the story of Undine, as well as Derek Walcott’s poem. I will attempt to use these two pieces to synthesize a claim relating to humans and their unwillingness to accept the ocean as a place of importance within our world. The essay may have compare and contrast elements as well as Walcott and the story of Undine share varying views throughout.
My Thesis Statement : The two passages insist that the ocean is not scenery but a partner and archive: as Walcott says, “The sea is History,” so neglecting it erases our own memory and future. Also, Fouqué’s scene, where Undine decides she “ought to regret” little as she leaves her “crystal palaces,” shows how human comfort can silence the sea and cost us belonging. Therefore, repairing our relationship means listening to marine places and the people who know them, and treating ocean care as ethical and historical repair, not an optional luxury.
I plan to conduct further research on which source I would like to connect to Walcott’s poem to strengthen the writing.
In the following chapters of the Deep by Rivers Solomon, we get a further view into the perspectives of the main character, Yetu, specifically in her interactions with other members of this fictional society, like her amaba and Oori. For example, through her conversation with her amaba, we can see in further depth the concept of “ignorance is bliss”, as her mother refuses to believe her own daughter’s claims of how horrible and painful the role of Historian is. To me, this mirrors modern society’s tendency to ignore large parts of our own history if it does not fit within a certain narrative that is commonly accepted. For example, in schools we are taught that concepts of racism such as slavery and mistreatment of groups like Natives was simply a bad thing that happened a long time ago, however we are not commonly taught in-depth the horrors of what exactly went on or how the effects are still present to this day.
The society narrated in this novel reveals how there is no such thing as a society without pain or flaws and that an act of remembering is more than a mental concept, but a physical one as well. This novel as a whole reminds me of the book the Giver, which many people probably read in middle school, where the main character is the only one with memories of our flawed society’s past within a “utopian” world without war or pain. Despite that world being a “perfect” society, there still is a need to have one person remember everything, just like the Deep. If they pile all of that history and responsible upon one singular person so as to not burden the rest of society to keep it “perfect” for everyone else, that begs the question of why they even need to remember anyways? Obviously, we as readers know that history is important to learn from, but what good is it if only one person can access this knowledge? I think that this means that no matter how hard we try, we can’t eradicate completely pain or the past, we must face it in one way or another, even if all evidence is erased except small remnants. The second point that I noticed is how throughout the chapters, Yeti’s act of remembering is described as physical above mental. For example, when the memories go back into her after the Remembrance, it is described as a seizure. The novel also describes memories as if they are physical objects she is carrying and being burdened with. I think this shows how history is more important than simply remembering, but it is trauma that can affect our lives in very real, tangible ways even if we do not easily see those correlations.