A 'Type' of Love Story

October 31^st, 2012

Analysis - Russell Bank’s [A Type of Love Story]

Mr. Menard / American Literature

11b4 111150 Ho InHee

    

    

     In dramas and movies, we see lovers breaking up, holding each other’s hand, dropping tears, saying “we weren’t meant to be together. “ The reality isn’t so different. Though not as tearful as in dramas, many couples undergo breakup. Ron and Sarah, two protagonists of Russell Bank’s Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story, weren’t exceptions. The most handsome guy, Ron, was subtlely attracted by Sarah Cole, a very insignificant-looking yet self-assured woman. Ron falls in love (or think he does) with Sarah. They live together, dreaming of blissful life together. But opposed to what they’d initially hoped, they ended tragic, Sarah dead.

     When being in a relationship with someone, everyone wants something from her. It may be comfort one is looking for, dignity, a sense of belonging, or even more materialistic needs. When this is not gratified, the relationship is easy to be broken. Ron and Sarah in Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story also wanted something from each other.

Ron wanted to sustain an ‘unequal’ relationship with Sarah. Though he was divorced because his former wife wanted to ‘pursue her career which he had been interrupting’, he was very self-aware that he ‘was extremely handsome’. He was also aware that Sarah was very homely. Ron never wanted to go public with Sarah. He was fine making love with Sarah in his own house, but wasn’t for going to a Saturday night party together. For Ron, Sarah was like a secret lover who loved him. So when Ron heard from Glenda that Sarah had left with her ex-husband, this ‘unequal’ relationship wasn’t to be sustained anymore. The ‘ugly bitch’ like Sarah couldn’t leave an extremely handsome guy, and when Sarah returned, Ron threw her out.

But what Sarah wanted wasn’t Ron as a secret lover. For her, who was also very well aware how she appeared to others, ‘recognition’ was something she wanted from relationship with Ron. She was unchallengeably the most homely woman. ‘Wearing heavy, tan cowboy boots and a dark brown, suede cowboy hat, lumpy jeans and a yellow tee shirt that clings to her arms, breasts, and round belly like the skin of a sausage,’ Sarah was recognized by others as one very unappealing woman. Having nothing to lose, she approached Ron, the most handsome guy, and by a good chance fell in love. But as Ron would never go public with her, this ‘recognition’ from others was never achieved. She was still the homeliest woman named ‘Sarah’, and at last, when she was called ‘ugly bitch’ by Ron, she gave up her life.

     Not many relations are long-lasting. ‘Lovers’ aren’t alone to easily break up. Even friends ‘break up’ too. As long as people want something from people in relationship, the relationship cannot last long. So-called ‘lovebirds’ are they who are happy enough being together. Their relationship is satisfactory without any honeyed words or presents. Ron and Sarah’s relationship was in the first place ‘unsatisfactory’. Ron merely wanted unpublic relationship with Sarah, having secret intercourses, whereas Sarah wanted public relationship, being together at anywhere public. Their relationship was to be tragic.

    

    

Hyejoon: I really liked your analogy of the two similar stories. You compared well how the tragedy plays out in both short stories. Towards the end, you casted a lot of questions. I hope you elaborate them and find the answers when you post it on blog. :)

Yeji: I actually couldn’t grasp the connection between second and third paragraph. Maybe you can explain more specifically what their ‘scars’ were, how each other (who is a very different person) cure their scars at least partly, then talk that despite this partial cure their scars still remain. I’ not organized about these ideas by myself, so I cannot give you detailed example of my suggestion… But it could be better if you add such connections between 2 and 3. Anyway, good job :D

Earthlings-First Draft

Earthlings

Mr. Garrioch / English Composition

Assignment #2 - Earthlings

111150 Ho InHee

Earlier this year, one of the Korea’s biggest food companies had to suffer the lowering of sales. In one of its products, Korean Food and Drugs Administration detected 140,000germs per gram, surpassing the standard with 14 times. People demanded a refund. The company consequently announced its plan to go off stream and recalled 24,030 boxes of products. And few months later, the company released a new version of product, dramatically depleting germs. Apparently, the company couldn’t break away from low sales.

Dreadful images are to stay longer in one’s memory. Astounding news that a number of germs were found in a largely-consumed chocolate appalled the majority, making people be reluctant to buy the products. Even after this product was renewed, the dreadful image of the chocolate company remained for long. A film Earthlings [2005], directed by Shaun Monson, utilizes this fact well for depicting humanity issues. It uses graphic and impressive pictures to accuse unpleasant truth about humanity.

Earthlings is criticized for this aspect-appealing merely to pathos. Earthlings doesn’t stop in portraying this current state by using footages of animal caging, facilitating, and slaughtering but features Rodeos, zoos, scientific research laboratories. Most of footages the film uses make people disgusted and feel self-abhorrent. Shocked, people may pledge not to consume meats and leather products. Many viewers express their impressions on this film on blogs, websites, and even on YouTube through videos. A predominant number of after-notes indicate persuasion about human evilness and boycotting animal products. But does this persuasion actually remain long? Emotions weaken in intensity with time. A death of family member leaves oneself a deep despair. He or she might not be able to handle emotions well and have many impulse of grieves accordingly. He or she might even gain depression. But this despair doesn’t last life-long. As that person gets on in years, he or she becomes more insensible to the death. One may find a vestige of grief when he or she recalls a death of sister few years ago but doesn’t lose control. Logic, on the other hand, remains longer. Once a person is convinced by logos, unless the logic is proven to be wrong, the person usually sticks to the logic for rest of his or her life. But with only pathos, Earthlings doesn’t so efficiently convey its theme.

   

But Earthlings raises another issue: are humans merciless and selfish only to animals? There is a term called [The Law of the Jungle]. This law supposes that in nature, might makes right. It is the strongest who is to survive. This law, recently, is not only applied to survival but also to benefit.  Speciesism can be seen in such aspect-that humans are making unfair profits over animals which are less strong than humans. But are people only taking advantage over animals? Consider social Darwinism and how Earthling features this philosophy. Butchers cut pigs’ throats, dog catchers beat stray dogs to death, and zookeepers and conveniently domesticate zoo animals. The film doesn’t spend too much time featuring wealthy, prosperous people consuming manufactured goods; in fact, it spends few good seconds showing leather jacket consumers in an instant. The rest of the film displays manufacturers who practice barbaric exploitation for their livelihood. Other people not included in this manufacturing process with big purchasing power consume these goods with little perception. Take Indian cowhide industry for instance. Young boys handle big cows, too big for lanky bodies to hold up. For Indian boys, exploiting cows is the only way to keep themselves off hunger. Cow abuse of these boys is clearly differs from complicating in this abuse by squandering money into buying leather jackets. Leather jacket consumers certainly have thousands of other clothes to wear. It is their choice to buy a leather jacket obtained by indigent Indian boys’ sweat and innocent cows’ blood. However, the film dismisses the question of whether it is the Indian boys’ fault to abuse cows or not. Footage of a new trainer in circus being chastised for not being atrocious enough arises this question once more. For sure, India, which ranks 165 out of 227 countries for GDP per capita, and the new recruit in circus unit are comparatively powerless entities exploited by the powers. Director Shaun Monson, on this wise, disregards [The Law of the Jungle] within human society and focuses exclusively on the destitute poor who have no alternative but to exploit animals for livelihood.

It is hard to deny that Earthlings leaves an intense afterimage. The film may make people feel self-abhorrent and want to be a vegetarian for a while. But Earthlings cannot be free from the blame of obsessively appealing to emotions. With applausable intention, the director solely focuses on arousing people’s emotion with dreadful images. This eventually leads people to have brief contemplation and introspection. But merely arousing emotion is definitely insufficient to move people in a long term. The director ought to use more logic and hard evidence in order to exert deep influence on the majority. Lack of evidence also causes blurring of the main theme. Overabundant use of graphic images raises the question of Darwinism within human community, as shown above. Shaun Monson has to have profound evidence for clear and effective conveyance of Earthling’s theme: stop terrorizing animals.

Short Faction

September 26^th, 2012

‘Faction’-Identity & Community

Mr. Menard/American Literature

11b4 111150 Ho InHee

  

The school backyard was covered with wet black pebbles. The frostily winter rain had wet the pebbles cold. I was stepping on those black wet pebbles with my black leather shoes, just like anyone else in the backyard.

“So who are going over to Heather’s house this weekend, exactly?” I asked, and the girls stole secret glances at one another.

“Shannon, Lizz, and Charlotte,” Heather answered, after some silence.

“Is she going too?” Lizzie asked, her eyes directed at me. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

“Probably not, my mom told me to bring maximum three. I’m really sorry.”

Things started to go weird when thirty three shots were heard in a university nearby. I had absolutely no idea what that shots were, why they happened, who had done it, or anything about it. The only I knew was those shots seemingly irrelevant to me were enough to make the girls somehow shun me. Whatever the reason for shunning me was, I was confronted by a sense of severe exclusion. The isolation was a little too heavy for an eleven-year-old girl alone in the US all by herself to handle. I desperately needed somebody to share my agony. I needed anybody to have an attached conversation with.

Apparently, I didn’t. I was a total newcomer from a nameless eastern country. On my first day at this new school, all they asked me was how dangerous was my country right under Communist North Korea. Anyhow, they were very friendly and amicable to this newcomer. I learned their culture, and taught them few Korean words.

Then there were the thirty three shots. This one guy who had made these shots was somewhat very related to me. I merely saw his name on newspaper. But he was still very related to me. Because he was Korean. This simple fact was enough for my friends shun me. Friends whom I had woven hands on the day before didn’t wave back any more. Weird words always disturbed me, biting me. The planned sleepover was canceled only for me. The naked ostracism had left me alone in a continent where no one was with me. I felt a desperate need to cut whatever relation was between the guy and me, but didn’t know how.

Another day, we were getting back our math quizzes. Mark, the boy sitting next to me, sneaked a look at my quiz sheet, even before I took a look at mine. Then he burst into laughter, so loud that everyone’s attention was on him. I looked down at mine, too, and noticed I got one wrong.

“What’s a hedgehog?” I asked. One question asked me to figure how many hedgehogs there are when there is a given number of total legs. Hedgehog sounded somehow similar to ‘hen’, and I assumed hedgehog was a kind of bird with two legs. After my question, Mark laughed even more hard. My ignorance was something to cause laughter to them. Or the fact that I, a Korean, got something stupid wrong in a math test was something funny, perhaps.

Similar pattern repeated until the day I returned Korea. By then, I wasn’t alone anymore, at least superficially. The ‘friends’ were not evils who were never willing to accept me forever no matter what. We were all eleven then, and ‘eleven’ wasn’t a number large enough to help us understand what nationality meant to us. I didn’t know then that I was shaping myself to be more non-Korean way, not caring about the grades so much and giving our creative (or even absurd) ideas. The only thing I knew for sure was that there were typical behaviors that made ‘friends’ be with me. 

+) 
Some memories not so pleasant. Anyway, writing this, I noticed I’ve changed a lot in KMLA as well. But the described ‘me’ in this story is what I had frequently heard about me till I was in middleschool.. or even till freshman year. Life in KMLA could very well be a good version2 of this faction about identity, maybe?