Effects of Graphic Novels

While reading the first half of Persepolis, my first graphic novel I have ever read, I have discovered something new. In normal novels you are only presented with words and you have to create the images of the characters, scenery, etc. in your head. In movies you only get the pictures and words and are unable to actually capture the thoughts of each and every character. This graphic novel allows for all of the above to happen. You get pictures, words, facial expressions, and thoughts all in one creating all kinds of stories. Although many people only think that graphic novels are for young kids who read spiderman or batman they can be proven wrong by reading Persepolis or any other graphic novels. The following article describes how graphic novels are one of the best sources of entertainment and bring the best of both worlds in one.

http://drej2522.hubpages.com/hub/graphic-novels-vs-books

Conformity Issues

While we view this standard operating procedure one of the things I keep thinking is that many of these people are found caught up in informational social influence and normative social influence. I am just learning about these things in my psychology class and now they are greatly applying in this situation. Informational social influence is the influence other people have on us because we ant to be right. Normative social influence is the influence other people have on us because we want them to like us. We see this taking place with many people who were involved in this procedure. Mostly the women are found doing things such as taking pictures and doing things they know are wrong but someone told them to do it so they do it anyways. A man also came in one day and claimed that because of the nice person he is he just did what they said cause he basically wanted to fit in with other U.S soldiers.

The following Youtube video shows both these types of conformity is a very much less harmful way but shows how people will do things just because others are or because they just want to fit in because they think it is the right thing to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPsg6ldzUnc&feature=related

Ranking Systems

Towards the end of the novel the boy finds himself being surrounded by many people who live their lives based on how the are ranked. This ranking system is usually based on previous jobs in your family or how successful you were in the army. The boys friend and mentor Mitka was a very recognizable man for his achievements on the battle field. As stated in the book "On the military ladder one's position was determined by rank and function in the regiment." It also described the roles of Soviet men, "In the Soviet world a man was related according to others opinion of him, not according to his own." There were many different ranking systems in this book and the following website gives an explanation of why some of these systems took place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_status

True Story or Not

We discussed a little bit in class on Friday how this book "They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky" seems to not be the complete truth. The author Judy A. Bernstein makes it sound like the boys just handed her their stories on sheets of paper and she just put them together and published them. We have realized that she fails to mentioned that it is obvious that she put her own details into the stories to make them more interesting. We compared this to "The Road of Lost Innocence" because Somaly seemed to tell more of all the truth and didn't try to make it more interesting she just told it like it was. The point I would like to get here however is how we have not rose a large amount of controversy about the fact that Bernstein obviously didn't just stick to the complete truth of these boys stories but when the world found out James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces" was published controversy rose so quickly and even ended up on the Oprah show. My best guess that this occurred was because Bernstein's book was about these poor boys touching, heartfelt story from africa while Frey's story involves drug and drinking problems when really they are still doing the same thing.

The following website gives some information on "A Million Pieces" and how the controversy arouse.

http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/James-Frey-and-the-A-Million-Little-Pieces-Controversy

UNHCR

The UNHCR was a group of people that wanted to try and help the many poor refugees such as the "lost boys". These three boys lives began to consist of only trying to survive. They had to move from town to town trying to find a safe place but being disrupted by the war. They faced things such as starvation, disease, and the attack of animals. The UNHCR came to help the group of people Benson was stationed with. People arrived walked around and the women in the group even cried not even being able to believe what was seen before their eyes. Its hard for people like us who are so blessed to have all we do to even began to think what others are going through in other parts of the world while we sit in our nice furnished homes, with clothing, food and anything we want. The following website shows exactly what the UHCR does and how it has helped refugees already and what they are trying to do to continue this process and how we can help as people today.

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

Human Trafficking

After reading beginning The Road of Lost Innocence a very disturbing thing is happening in Cambodia. The people mostly women and young girls are being put through a system of human trafficking. Somaly Mam is sold multiple times, raped, tricked, and beaten all within this process and she has come to find that this is simply her way of life. I wanted to know the cause of why this was happening in Cambodia and the following article does a good job of describing reasons for why this takes place. A brief description of why it takes place is due to including poverty, socio-economic imbalance between rural and urban areas, increased tourism, and lack of unemployment, education, and safe migration. Women would even be used as a way to repay debts that their husbands had built up. Human trafficking is a terrible thing and Somaly even says in her book it causes her to feel ill just thinking about it.

http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/cambodia

NGO

Throughout the first half of "Fattening for Gabon we keep coming across this term known as NGO which stands for Non Governmental Organizations. I was curious as to just what this term was all about because I wanted to know more about these people who came into the lives of Yewa and Kotchikpa. I wanted to gain a further understanding as to why these people had so many children, why they had changed their names and just what is was that this new Mama and Papa to these children was all about.

To further my research I searched through few websites that are listed below to help me gain an understanding that these organizations were not government run and were independently decided upon so what these people are doing claims to be a good thing for this children thus far.

http://www.nonprofitexpert.com/ngo.htm

Writing Is All He Has

"He had the burden of his generation, a debt to repay before dying. It would be tragic and unjust in the extreme if he were to pass away, to be buried deep in the wet earth, carrying with him the history of his generation. If only he could shed all other need of everyday living and concentrate all his energies into writing his task would be over sooner."

This quote from the book is very important in showing that Kein had lost all belief that he served any purpose on this earth other than to tell his story. Kein had no family left, the one girl he loved had been getting with other men the entire time he was gone, and he can't seem to find a sense of who is he is at all anymore. An explanation for all this is a topic we have brought up in class a few times now that deals with this idea of having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I believe that this disorder which is said to be the result of a terribly frightening, life-threating, or otherwise highly unsafe experiences is a very reasonable explanation for why Kein acts the way he does. The war changes people and we can see that it has changed Kein. He feels as though he serves no purposed on this Earth other than to tell his story and after he completes that there will be no reason for him to live any longer.

The following website goes into greater detail on this Post Trumatic Stress Disorder and will help the reader better understand the things that Kein is going thorough throughout The Sarrow of War.

http://www.medicinenet.com/posttraumatic_stress_disorder/article.htm

Stopping and Realizing Everyone Has Their Own Story

"The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie was a very touching and eye opening video for me to watch. It came to a conclusion that so often we judge different people by only one stereotype or only one story we have heard. If everyone would take a moment to actually listen and get to know other peoples stories they would realize just exactly every person is going through and maybe realize that the person sitting right next to you no matter, how tall, what color, how old, may be more like you than you think. Just as Adichie said, "Sterotypes are incomplete stories..." Not everyone only has a "Single Story" they have many stories that develop who they are today so no one has the right to judge.

The following is a YouTube video of a movie trailer for a movie called Freedom Writers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0L1U-Rdj4 I believe that this movie does a very good job of showing how some students only see each other through one stereotype and gradually learn from the help of their new teacher Mrs. Gruwell that they are all going through some of the same situations and can learn from one another if they give it a chance just as Adichie describes in her speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front vs. Lord of the Flies

Remarque’s novel seems to keep referencing and bringing up this argument of if these soldiers are only men or if they are displaying characteristics that are animalistic. A great example comes straight from the text of these animalistic qualities, “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men at this moment when Death is hunting us down” (Remarque 113).

Another novel that displays these animalistic characteristics is from Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The following website takes you to a summary of chapter 9 within the book where the boys who are already in a very wild state mistake their own friend for a wild beast and tear apart and actually kill him. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/section9.rhtml This book gives another example of how these animalistic qualities do not only take place in Remarque’s war novel but also with a group of stranded children on an unknown island.