Humor's Role

"I had to laugh 'cos I couldn't cry no more"

--anonymous

Humor can make a really sad story just barely acceptable. When we read a depressing story, we feel very bad, however, the jokes and humors make the story readable and maybe even enjoyable. This saying basically means, you can't feel sad forever about everything; if your life is sad, try to have fun with it and try to enjoy some parts of it. Angela's Ashes is a very sad story by Frank and the fact that it's a true story made it worse. However, the story is also filled with silly little details and events to make the story enjoyable in a sense that it's not sad all the way to the core. Also, for a story that sad, everything that's not so sad is going to be mildly good relatively so it's easier to create a few humorous details here and there. Usually in this kind of work, a very sad tragedy, authors use catharsis to soothe the tension because some of the events might just be too horrible. For example, when a very close friend of the main character dies and the character is experiencing a lot of grief, the author sometimes adds a little twist or details that is just enough to make the reader smile or sigh in relief. When a story is just too sad and the characters are just too depressed, even though there is almost nothing to laugh about, they will laugh at their misfortune and to make their life bearable.

SICK

Sickness can refer to as physical sickness or mental sickness. Usually when we refer to a sickness we are talking about a physical sickness. However, there is two distinct type of physical sickness. One being a biological sickness and another one being physical sickness. For example, one can be heart attack, liver failure, or cancer where there is a malfunction of organ in your body. The other kind is where there is a physical dysfunction and or deform of body organ such as the the fracture of one or more bones, or the amputation of a leg. I haven't been hospitalized for anything before but I have had relative who had been hospitalized for a few days and me myself have went to a hospital because I have broke my arm. My sister was hospitalized when she was littler due to her problem regarding her digestive system. If I remembered correctly, she was hospitalized for 2 weeks. During the time span, the hospital personnel would test some of her blood sample to see if she gets better. Also, she has to absorb nutrients from a tube. It is very common for hospitalized people to only be able to consume food and other nutrient through a tube because the main reason they are hospitalized is because they can't function normally and they can't live the normal life and the most common problem is diet. It's very sad to visit people in a hospital because they can't go out and play with you and they know that too. This makes the mood very depressing because both of the people knows that the patient is in a bad shape.

Perspective

Different perspective can make a story totally different because the feeling you get from the different perspectives  can be extremely different. You can read a story and think the main character is a hero without a doubt and another person can read the same story in a different perspective and think the same character is very evil. Perspective is different when different people are telling the story because people are often biased and when people are bias people influence the way they tell the story even though they didn't mean to. For example, when two people are telling the same event, one might say, "He killed the poor little puppy that didn't deserve to die while pushing the old lady aside." and another might say, "He heroically stepped in front of the truck, saved the old lady by pushing her away." This is an example of two opposite extreme. While, reading the first one, you see a reckless person pushing an old lady and for some reason killed a little dog. When another person read the second line, the person would think that the person is very brave without a flaw because they know nothing about him killing a dog. This is what perspective does to the reader. Different perspective can twist the story and give as totally different feeling by not providing certain information, using different adjective, different word choice, or by describing the event in a way that praises or scolds someone.

Writing in a Style

Subject: Sofa area mess, again.
Body:
Dear all,
I know how hard it is to lift our hand and hold our garbage and walk a few steps to the garbage can. However, there is a rule that prohibits food or drinks outside of the cafeteria and it has been announced a few times using class times. This rule has not been very well enforced and the people breaking the rules are supposedly in higher grades. Nonetheless, we all have the responsibility and a great heart and I hope we can all try our best and overcome our greatest difficulties of not living the life of a bum.

Subject: Sofa area mess!
Body: This morning I saw the mess in the sofa area and it is ridiculous! You are high school students! You should learn to clean up after yourself. This is ridiculous! This is not the market, the trash cans are just down the hallway and you are so lazy to go there? Don't give me any excuses, anytime I see another student leave garbage behind he will be punished. One more time I see mess in the sofa area, whoever leaves trash behind will get a detention and the second time will be suspension!

Subject: Please clean up after yourself.
Body:
Dear Students and Faculties of PAS,
I'm sure you all have noticed about the indecency in the sofa area. Regarding this issue, students must clean up after themselves or the rule of no food will be imposed more strictly on students who does not comply. This mess has been a great issue throughout the year and I hope we can create a better and cleaner learning environment for everyone. Let's work harder in keeping our community clean. Thank you.
Sincerely.

Two Styles

Lahiri use to try to hide about her culture and background because she used to feel ashamed of it because she lives in an American society. However, America is a giant melting pot and it is composed of many different culture.After she became older she is not afraid of her friends or other people knowing about her culture because she learns to be proud of who she is and that includes her culture. In her writing, we see a blend of culture of her education, which was American, and her heritage, which was Indian. This might also be a boost for her unique writing style because she had combined to two kind of culture into her own unique style that captures the heart of both American and Indian. She learned to integrate the good part of each culture into her writing. Because she was the first generation born in America in her family so she was more influenced by the Indian culture. Lahiri has the same struggle as any other immigrant. She has to choose which culture to be more influential in her life. For example, she can choose not to live the American way and live completely the life of an Indian as if she is still in Indian. Another option is that she can drop her Indian heritage, disregard of family tradition, and live like an American girl. However, she chose to include both in her life because she believed that blending into the society is important but keeping heritage and tradition is also important.

Two Lives

When a person is influenced by two or more different culture, education, family, environment, friends, or ethnicity, sometimes the cultural differences might conflict with each other making one's life difficult. For example, a Muslim with strict Muslim family tradition and rules that grows up in the United States would most likely enter a dilemma of whether he should obey his parents on every single aspects of life or maybe he should live the way that pleases him the most. Sometimes, it's not up to a person to decide which cultural standard to live by. For example, back to the strict Muslim scenario, if the child disobeys his father and married an American without his dad's permission, he might get slaughtered right in his house and that is called honor killing. Cultural differences effect writers a lot. For example, an Indian that lives in the United States might write in English with the English humor, however, he might include Indian traditions, aspects, and teachings into the plot or integrate them into the theme. These writers with a cultural difference are different from other writers because they include their own identity in their works and when people who shared the same identity as them read their work, they might feel a sense of connection to it.

Taking a Leap

Taking risks happens all the time. We gain or we lose everytime we choose to risk it or we choose not to. When you take risk your life to save a little kid standing in front of a speeding Lamborghini, you gain praise and you feel good about what you have done. When you have taken a leap of faith and have done something good, something you feel proud, something you want to tell your grandchildren, and you have succeeded, you feel very good. If you have risk a lot to do something or to achieve something, you would most likely regret it and it could act as a lesson for further decisions. However, there are things where you tried and gave up everything for a greater cause but failed, you still feel good about it because you have done your best and you have given your best shot. Usually when you are considering a very big choice in which you would have to risk a great deal and you would list out the pros and cons, or the costs and benefits of taking the leap. However, when there is a emergency need for you to make the decision at the moment, you don't have time for detailed analysis, you do what feels right and usually what is just. Those are the times where you regret the decision and those are the risks where they failed to succeed.

Nature's Role

People encounter nature everyday. To be technical all people encounter nature every second because nature is the setting we are in and we, technically speaking, are parts of nature. However, besides being essential and everywhere at all time, it plays an important role in everyday life. People are trying for decades and for centuries to harness nature because it is the most powerful force. Some people view nature as harmful, some people view nature as helpful. Some just go with the flow. These are all legit arguments because nature such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, which took thousands and thousands of lives away are always pending do strike at any given time. However, nature is helpful in that without many of the aspects of nature, our work can be infinitely harder, such as wind power, solar energy, river transportation and many other forces. When I go hiking, nature is an obstacle that I have to conquer, however, nature makes hiking enjoyable with all the green, sunlight, and periodic breezes. Nature is an obstacle in itself and almost by definition but if people can learn to appreciate and understand nature it can be a very good. Writers write about nature all the time. With different styles, we see writes who show distaste in nature when they talk about the obstacles and forces against the main character. We see writers who show appreciation  through how the main character relaxes through nature and loves and enjoy nature's all aspect.

How Do Artists Convey Style?

Artists convey style in their art with 5 different ways. The most obvious of all is what the art is about. What the art is about tells people a lot about what the artist is trying to convey through their art because it tells people what it is all about and what the audience should look for in the art. The second part of conveying style is that if the art is suppose to be realistic or nonrealistic or a combination of both. Being realistic means that the art uses real life element and attributes such as a portrait of a person or an event. Nonrealistic might be the portrait of scenes that defies physics and drawing of impossible images or of supernatural events or beings. The third part is the actual drawing of the artist. The use of color, light color is more optimistic and warm and dark color is more pessimistic and cold. Then, does the author uses more curve lines or straight lines. Also, there are different type of art. Religious art, impressionism, abstract art, and many other kind. Light and shadow also contributes to a writer's style. However, light and shadow are more related to the subject and how the art should look like to convey a point and to be logical according to logic. However, extra lighting and shadows on unnecessary spaces and with inappropriate places to spotlight some important aspects might be a way artist convey style. Take the painting on  page 409 for example. It's an illustration of the sinking of the Titanic. The purpose of this painting is probably to tell that there are people on half filled life boats just watching as people die in front of them but they are too scared to rescue them. The scene is dark because it was at night but it might also be because the author is portraying a dark side of people and that's another reason why he used dark color and only vivid light from the Titanic. It is a realistic painting and the author might use the style of realistic more often because the titanic and the people are quite realistic without any trace of unrealistic aspects.