Oliver Twist

What caused me a huge impact when I watched “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens, was the treatment children received. Having Oliver as the main character of the story, was a good representation to give me a better understanding of how those times where seen by kids.

In the first place, Victorian age was an economic expansion time, which was full of transformation in terms of power. The industralization era started to stay for a long time. One of the consecuences of this process was the needed of more work force. But, as workers felt they were over exploited, the only possibility was using children to work. In the movie, this situation can be seen in the orphanate where hundreds of boys and girls were forced to work under deplorable conditions. In addition to that, adults took advantage of children's weaknesses and lack of education, that ,certaintly, allowed them to save money due to in a way they were cheap instruments to use. According to my research about this topic, I could realize that there wasn't any supervision or control from the police or the governement to stop this kind of treatments. Now, and following with Oliver experience, I think that he never saw this issue as a job but as an adventure. He was so innocent to understand something like this, that the only situation which concerned him was to felt loved by others.

I have to say that I really enjoyed watching the movie. As I said before, what causes me huge impact was how children were badly exposed in terms of working condition. But, what I like the most was how the director played with "chiaroscuro" through the movie. That is to say, he trayed to make a contrast by representing freedom, happiness and love with light and violent and difficult moments with shadows. For example, the house of Mr. Brownlow and Fagin. I wish Oliver would have lighter than darker moments. He was so pure and full of hopes that he didn't deserve all the bad experiences he lived.

Is death announced?

Honestly, when I read The Signal-man by Dickens, I couldn’t get the whole point of the story. It was very difficult to analyse situations, characters and some symbols. For example, what does the train mean? What’s the meaning of the signal man? What about the ghost?

After being thinking a lot about this, I realized that every single object of the short story has to do with death. That is to say, not the act of dying but death as a warning. Inside the story, the ghost is in charge of giving clues and warnings of death to the signal man, but he realized later that this was a warning. Now I wonder, when the time comes, will death give us a warning? As far as I know, yes. I’m saying this because, and thanks to my experience, after someone dies the family or closest friends start remembering what was the last thing that person did. Most of the time they say; He called me last night and said take care, I love, I will never forget you. Or that the person was acting very strange, he started doing weird things.. I remember once that I was talking to a friend of mine and she told me that she dreamed about her mother’s death and some times when her mother wasn’t at home she felt as if she was there. Three months later her mother died in a car crush.

I strongly believe that death is announced, the problem is that we, human, don’t know how to decipher that signals. That is why we need to keep our five senses open, because we never know when death can arrive.

Franky Rules!

Reading Frankestein by Mary Shelley was a full of emotions experience. Every single page was a new demonstration of love, hate, discrimination, morality, acceptance, frustration, etc. Indeed, I believe that all these words are conected with the most importan one, senses.

Our body has several functions, but the most important one is the way we can percieve things. This process can be concluded through five and amazing ways, which are touching, seeing, tasting, smeeling and hearing. Now, relating this topic to Frankestein, there is a chapter where Franky met this blind man, who is not afraid of him because he can not see, he just listens to Franky. This situation causes a huge impact in Franky’s life because it is the first time he doesn’t feel rejected or discriminated by other. This situation made me reflect a lot about all those people who have scars or a stetical problem in their faces which make them look different from others. It is imposible to denay discrimination in those cases, plus if our society has narrow minded attitudes among them. How would it be if we wouldn’t have eyes? Probably, there wouldn’t be any differences, no color, no shape, no discrimination at all.

I really enjoyed reading the novel. It is incredible how M. Shelley could deal and includ difficult topics such as, loneliness, family, beliefs, marginalization, identity in one piece of writing . I felt that she played with us through them, through our senses. Moreover, the novel has a close relationship with nowadays society, eventhough it is an old master piece, we are living between lots of Victors and Frankestains.

Daffodils' Meadows

When I read I wondered lonely as a cloud by Wordsworth, the first thing that rised in my mind when I saw the title of the poem was; this is going to be so sad.

Infering meanings and creating fake images is easy to do. For example, the word lonely gave me a negative connotation and I built a wrong concept. Luckly, after listening to the poem, everything I have tought of was mistaken. Wordsworth poem is full of nature and deep thoughts. He related daffodils with his mind, with his memory, his time of reflection and relax. In a way, he included several components of nature in his poem, I could say that he felt a close relation with it.

I think that Wordsworth strongly enjoyed and admired nature and we could immediately see that in the title where he wrote a comparison between a cloud and a man. Sometimes, when I lived difficult or stressful moments I always imagine the country side, or a beautiful lake in the south of Chile. It is incredible how useful is that, it helps me to continue living and breathing. Maybe that was the real meaning of the daffodils. Why don’t we change Santiago’s side walks for a meadow of daffodils?

Are we going to be remembered?

After reading “When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be” by Keats, I could relate the poem to my experiences and to what I’ve been living. I have always though that we, human beings, have a mision in the world. No matter the place we born, the family we have, the social status, the culture we belong to, there is a hidden purpose we have to discover.

According to Keats, he was afraid of dying and never be remembered. Maybe, he thought that his life was not good enough until that time and his acts were not special or meaningful to be remembered by others, by the society. I can not even think about how regretful Keats feels now in heaven. I imagine that there is a lot of people who percieve the same as Keat, but they are so wrong. I would say I was one of them. Four years ago I thought that the meaning of my life was study, have a family, earn money, have a dog and meet my grandsons. Nowadays, and thanks to my career, I know, and I’m sure about it, I’m here to change the world. The purpose of my life is helping students to be in the top and be part of society in order to create a better world. Actually, I’m not worried about death and don’t be remembered, as Keat was, because I know that I’m going to have an effect on my students.

Concluding with my ideas, I honestly believe that every single person in this world is going to be remembered one way or another. Day by day we are building our own story, and that story will belongs to the history of time.