Guest Blogger: Ramon B.

During the middle of last week we have started on our unit of Alienation and Modern Life. Although we have only been given the basic facts of the unit and the novel such as “The Metamorphosis” written by Franz Kafka that goes along with the unit, we have gained the basic knowledge of the content we are going to cover in the weeks ahead of us. The unit discusses about the type of literature that informs readers on the relationship of people with different beliefs, appearance, and culture vs. the new ideas, beliefs, and culture that the Industrial Revolution has brought to the world. It talks about the continuing the trend of the cultivation new ideas and beliefs throughout modern society and the effects it has to the people with different ideas and belief living outside of the “modern life.”

I know that many of the people in our class including myself has not and will not start the novel of “The Metamorphosis” until late Monday night and that we have not been thoroughly exposed to the idea of “Alienation and Modern Life.” So in that case I will discuss examples from our previous unit and provide modern examples that I think will highly fit and discuss the unit of “Alienation and Modern Life.” In William Faulkner’s novel “As I Lay Dying,” Anse and his family were most likely considered “Aliens” in the scene when they passed through the town of Jefferson that had modernized townsmen, modern businesses and buildings. They were considered different from the rest of the town through their attire, actions, Jewel’s improper reaction to the pedestrians they encountered, and the fact that they were people who lived out in the country. The scene from AILD shows how people tend to “Alienate” or consider other people different even from a smaller scale. A more modern novel such as “The Glass Castle” written by Jeanette Walls is a perfect example of “Alienation” because she talks about she was always treated differently in every school she attended because of the fact that she never had time to adjust to the culture of the multiple places she lived in. Another perfect example of the alienation of other people happens in a place in what we like to call high school. Many of us tend to separate certain people that do not fit the criteria of a typical “normal” student. Many of us believe that a typical high school student these days is someone who participates one way or another in school related clubs, teams, events, and etc. wears “normal” clothes either gangster, preppy, or casual clothing, and someone who shows school spirit. We tend to separate ourselves and think differently of the people who don’t fit one or more of those criteria. They are usually left out and thought of as “outsiders.” These examples that I have provided show how alienation not only occurs in a large scale but it also occurs in a smaller scale. With my ideas being said I am ready to learn about the unit on “Alienation and Modern Life” and learn how literature is used to express the ideas of it.