Dear 2g phone

Dear 2g Phone

            How cold you must be. In this freezing weather, when everyone is armed with multiple layers of clothing, not only do you not have a glossy case like other phones, your back is bare. I remember: it was about three days ago. I dropped you in my dorm room from the desk. It must have been about a meter from the ground, 20 times your height. The impact of the fall ruthlessly tore you apart into three pieces: body, battery, and back cover.

            Had it been a normal person, he would have instantaneously screamed, picked up his phone, and meticulously checked for any scratches. He would have been shocked that his phone was disintegrated. He would have felt pity. Oh, but my dear 2g phone, not me. I merely cast a glance and left you there, for I was busy typing on my lab top. You lay there, like that lame potato in Toy Story. While leaving the room after a while, I quickly swooped up your body and battery, leaving your back cover on the ground. I carelessly plugged the battery into your body and plunged you into the darkness of my Nubi’s pocket.

Why I have become so accustomed to dropping you and watching you fall apart is simple. First, I have done it too many times. Not only have I dropped you out of mistake, I have thrown you high in the air to see what happens. Out of sympathy still left inside me, I have thrown you on grass and snow only. The result has been fascinating; you endured every fall, no matter how high. I wonder why you are so sturdy when your worthless body has no function to preserve. My intellectual curiosity tempts me to shatter you on concrete, but we will see. Watching you fall apart has been my joy. But don’t get too upset, my friends have laughed as well. My advice: befriend loneliness.

Second, I’m not fond of you. I’m not desperate for a smart phone, but I do think that a smart phone would better serve my life. Playing your tedious games inevitably makes me curse the day when I lost my iphone three years ago in a noraebang. The moment I’m typing these words, a friend of mine is playing with a Galaxy S3 a racing game with fantastic graphics that would probably make you explode if you were to run it.

Dear phone, you are probably shivering in cold. I can barely imagine how I would feel when the skin of my back is sliced off in this weather. But what can I do? When I was cleaning my room today, I saw no trace of your back cover. Will I search again when I go back? No, I’ve got more important business, such as doing Facebook.

But don’t get discouraged by this letter, because I do have a plan for you. I’m not just going to hurl you into the trash. I have learned that as time passes and smart phones dominate the world, you become somewhat ‘special’. Of course, nobody wants you now. But after decades, when you transcend the concept of obsolescence and define the adjective ‘primitive’, I shall sell you off to some museum and earn big money. You don’t need to do much. Just endure two or more decades hopelessly wishing that someone would find your back cover. Good luck buddy.

Tales of the Unexpected - Exploring Human Weakness

            The stories in ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ are bizarre. Not surprising, because most short stories are. Roald Dahl’s short stories end with an abrupt twist of the plot, leaving the reader bewildered and dazzled, wondering whether the story was meant for anything at all. For example, in ‘Dip in the Pool’, a man named Mr. Botibol attempts to win a bet by jumping off a ship, expecting to be saved by the woman standing next to him when he jumps down. But after some hesitation, she turns back and walks away, leaving poor Mr. Botibol floundering in the sea. At this point, when the reader expects some kind of miracle, the story ends. But definitely, the stories aren’t just meant for amusement; they are too short to develop plots intricate enough to weave thrill and suspense. Instead, every story has its own, subtle message that combine into a single theme – human’s weakness to his impulse.

            The characters in ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ seem more evil, cold, and egocentric than normal humans. But the darkness of their nature is not exaggerated; the characters are not exceptional. Most of us, if put in extreme situations, are triggered to unethical and insane thoughts. Thus, rather than underlining how evil humans are, Roald Dahl shows that humans are weak to such sudden impulse.  

            One of the most famous short stories, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is a murder story. Mary, after learning from her husband that he will leave her, bangs his head with a lamb’s leg from behind. He immediately dies. Whether she meant to kill him is unknown. But her murder isn’t as surprising as how she murders and her reactions afterwards. How she conveys this blow is shocking, as she does it without any hesitation. Even after checking his death, all she says is ‘All right, so I’ve killed him’. This contrasts to herself just a few minutes from then, when she loved her husband so dearly. She shows no sign of remorse or panic, as she coldly and intelligently creates a false scene to escape blame, at which she succeeds. Mary illustrates how humans can turn cold so suddenly; how we are so easily dominated by our sudden impulse and whim; how your lover can be your murderer the next minute. Joker illustrates this concept in the movie ‘Dark Knight’, when he says that the mere difference between a hero and a villain is a sheet of paper. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ should not be interpreted as an isolated case of a crazy woman. Most of us totally depend on the people around us, and no one knows what evil we will turn into when something happens to our beloved ones.

            Mr. Botibol in the short story mentioned above, ‘Dip in the Pool’, also demonstrates human weakness. His logic and reasoning are completely obscured by his desire the win the bet. Greed dominates his mind and renders him myopic. Risking his life to win a bet may seem simply crazy and amusing at first glance. But one only needs to think for a while to see that so many people, like Mr. Botibol, risk everything for money. The most respected members of our society are often found in TV, covering their face shamefully under conviction of bribery.

            Roald Dahl, in his brilliant short plots, create entertaining characters that seem unrealistic at first glance but who represent the essence of human nature. By exposing this nature without moderation, he teaches a stark lesson that we may be crazier and weaker than who we think we are.

Short Paragraph on Dorian Gray - How Women Are Portrayed

     At first glance, Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, encompassing themes of masculinity and homoeroticism between men, might appear as a novel only centered on males. After all, all the main characters, except Sibyl (if one considers her a main character), are males and each represents a Victorian masculine character - an artist, an aristocrat, and a hedonist. Even romance, a theme through which women normally take important roles in novels, is short-lived in the novel, as Sibyl commits suicide. However, whether deliberate or not, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” does portray women in a specific way - as submissive objects who are weak and naive. This is most clearly illustrated through Henry’s reference to women as “a decorative sex” and “never having anything to say, but say it charmingly”. Though in a different manner, Dorian reinforces this portrayal, as he loves Sibyl not for her character and substance, but only for her aesthetic talent. It is not only the males who view women submissively. Females take part as well. Lady Henry, in her conversation with Dorian, says that she “always hear Henry’s views from his friends”, which portrays her as a submissive and naive wife. Similarly, Sibyl is characterized as a woman who is willing to give up her career and talent just
 for her infatuation with Dorian. Her role in the book reinforces this idea, as Sibyl is more of a vehicle that Wilde uses through which Dorian’s corruption and decay manifest, rather than an independent character with a message of her own. Therefore, following this train of thought, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that the lack of substantive depiction of women is a message of its own. In this sense, the novel effectively sends a notable, although not overt or resounding, message about women.

An intriguing, suspenseful, and poignant film: Ben X

            Imagine a student getting bullied. How do you feel? Probably sad, angry, and indignant. Indeed, bullying is cruel and cannot be condoned. But strangely and sadly, such blatant wrong is committed so frequently among mankind. It is a problem that plagues every school. But it’s not a problem among children only. Although in a milder form, it appears in basically every human community; someone is left out, rejected, and ostracized deliberately, and someone else will gloat over the situation. A bully is defined as ‘a person who uses strength or influence to harm or intimidate those who are weaker’. My personal view is that following this definition, the very structure of the society we live in, wherein the poor are pushed around by the strong to desperately find jobs and feed their families, is a form of bullying. As much as bullying is such a predominant problem of mankind, it powerfully relates to every one of us.

            Bullying, in most cases, stops at an adequate point where the victims suffer emotionally. But in some cases, it is taken to the extreme, resulting in assaults, sexual harassments, and even deaths. ‘Ben X’ is film based on a true story of one of these cases, in which a boy who committed suicide after being bullied. But rather than replicating the exact story and becoming another sad but trite film about how serious bullying is, ‘Ben X’ takes an unexpected swerve at the end that renders it creative and thought-provoking. In the film, Ben, the victim, fakes a suicide and reveals himself at the memorial ceremony in his school. This surprise turns out to be a careful ploy to make the bullies and the world learn and repent.

            The film is intriguing, suspenseful, and poignant. The brilliant acting and the unanticipated twist at the end are especially notable. But it was also the ending that made me a little uncomfortable. The ending reveals that Scarlite, the girl who Ben befriended in a game, met in real life, and saved him from committing a suicide, is merely Ben’s imagination. Scarlite is more than an important friend to Ben; it is only through Scarlite that Ben regains composure and confidence and is able to come up with the creative idea to fake a suicide. However, such important role of Scarlite also implies that if Ben had not befriended Scarlite, he would have quitted forever. 

           This message is daunting and sad because Ben is an exception. That Ben has such an intimate friend in a game and she will devote herself into Ben without evening meeting him, calling herself a healer of Ben, isn’t likely to happen in real life. Even if we take into the consideration that Scarlite outside the game is Ben’s imagination, normal people are not able to conjure a friend into their lives and treat him or her as real, which Ben did out of his exceptional immersion into the game.

            However, despite this impracticality, ‘Ben X’ is definitely worth watching. It warms our heart with the hope that there is probably a way to solve bullying. It gives hope that the cruelest bullies around us also have prospects of change.

The man who really stabbed Dorian

           A blank sheet of paper. Plop. A drop of black ink falls, right on the center of the sheet. The instant it touches the sheet, it spreads like wild fire, consuming every whiteness as it pervades the sheet of paper, leaving behind sheer blackness. This is how Dorian Gray, a white sheet of paper, an epitome of purity and naivety, transforms into evil. It is Lord Henry that drops a drop of ink that consumes Dorian Gray at a frightening speed. It is Lord Henry who, although he may not have the intention to cause what he triggers eventually, is accountable for the devilish, wretched man who lies at the floor, stabbed by a knife, at the end of the book. It is Lord Henry, metaphorically speaking, who stabs Dorian Gray.

            Lord Henry corrupts Dorian Gray’s mind in numerous ways. One of them that cause the pitiful transformation of Dorian is when Lord Henry instills in Dorian’s mind the importance of beauty – not as in inner beauty, but physical beauty. Henry views art, or beauty, as the ultimate goal of life. He thus believes that other values deemed more valuable by the society such as virtue can be sacrificed for art. After conversing with Henry while posing for Basil’s picture, Dorian gets obsessed with beauty, especially eternal beauty. Bewildered but firmly persuaded, he cries out, “I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me…Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day,-mock me horribly!” Such intense desire to maintain eternal beauty of his picture is actualized in this fictitious novel; Dorian never grows old or unsightly, only the picture does. When Basil accuses Lord Henry of his corruptive influence, Henry merely shrugs, saying that he had just helped find the real Dorian Gray.

            Lord Henry’s influence does not stop at merely providing a new perspective on beauty. The ultimate push that drives Dorian plunging down to the abyss of vice is given when Lord Henry talks about the death of Sibyl. Although Dorian Gray is contaminated by his obsessive desire for eternal beauty, he is not completely full of vice yet; he may be dappled with dark spots, but not completely black. This is illustrated by his initial repentance on his ruthless conduct towards Sibyl; he deeply regrets hurting Sibyl, and vows to marry Sibyl. The nobility of this decision stands out in the fact that Dorian Gray, when vowing to marry Sibyl, is still ambivalent about her; his intention is to purely atone for his wrong conduct. This is where Lord Henry untimely comes in, with the news of Sibyl’s death. However, it is not the news of Sibyl’s death that gives the final push. Henry tells Dorian to view Sibyl’s death not as a miserable tragedy, but an artistic sacrifice. Thus, rather than lamenting and repenting, he gets over Sibyl’s death. He compromises his conscience, which is manifest in his thoughts: “Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything, by the sacrifice she had made of her life.” He views Sibyl as having died and accomplishing true and eternal beauty, therefore nothing for him to feel guilty about.

            Most importantly, the yellow book that Henry gives to Dorian, which he describes himself a ‘poisonous book’, devours every bit of goodness left in Dorian. He then embarks on a series of heinous conducts of moral turpitude, represented by his murder of Basil Hallward, whom he regarded as one of his indispensable companions. His end is tragic; he stabs a knife into his portrait, which has bore all the manifestation of his age and vice. As most readers would predict, the destruction of the portrait leads to the ‘real’ Dorian’s death. Ultimately Lord Henry, unaware of his tremendous influence on the young man who couldn’t bear the sudden inrush of the radical philosophy, tugs the strings for Dorian to act beyond corruption.