The Revolution of Broken Hearts, Defeated Dreams, and Faded Worlds – Camille Monet’s Journal During the French Revolution
Camille Monet is a normal working class girl from a poor family. Her father is a farmer and her mother dies in a famine. In a desperate attempt to fight for her own rights, she starts a protest while she goes to buy bread. Inspired by her father’s original left-wing thoughts, she firmly believes in the positive side of the revolution. Until one day, when her father mysteriously goes missing, and she encounters him in a place she never expected, does she realize that there was always shadow behind the Jacobin’s utopian picture of the revolution.
Even though Camille thinks that the revolution was a failure, I personally believe that the French Revolution had plenty of benefits. For one, it defeated the reign of the long-lasting monarchy in France. Even though it was temporarily replaced by another dictator, the people did get a lot more rights out from the revolution. Speaking of people, the 3rd estate farmers and serfs also were able to contribute in abolishing the social structure that confined them. Also, the French Revolution introduced more freedoms of education and religion, as well as enlightened ways of thinking (which sparked the revolution). This led to France becoming one of the most industrialized countries, which hugely benefited them in terms of their ability to spread France’s culture and languages far and wide in the status quo. So, looking on the long term scale, the French Revolution, though extremely brutal and destructive, was beneficial in the long term.
An Uprising of Knee Breeches, Chopped Heads, and Boats: A Brief on the French Revolution
The French Revolution, a violent uprising by the French people of the 3rd estate, was one of the most radical changes in government of history. It was set in an absolutist constitutional monarchy, where the 3rd estate people, accounting for 99% of the population, took up the heaviest burdens of the society for 300 years, while the rich 1% partied, oblivious of the sufferings. The 3rd estates farmed lands with all their efforts despite a desperate famine which ravaged their crops. Additionally, they had to pay an unfeasible amount of taxes, causing many of them to fall into heavy debt. Finally, with France collapsing economically and going bankrupt, the people couldn’t hold back anymore. They decided to take their fate into their own hands and start a furious revolution. The 3rd estate didn’t know this at the time, but their uprising engraved the words “Liberty, Fraternity, Equality” into the history books forever.
Throughout the French Revolution, we can see shadows of other notable revolutions in history. The Russian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Cuban Revolution alike, all revolutions that occur in history happen because of an oppressive dictator who uses sheer violence to rule over their people. It occurs through a long span of time, but when the poor peasants realize that they are actually the majority of the society and could take their fate into their own hands, this becomes a catalyst to a radical change that will reshape history forever.
Racism, Segregation, and the Harms of Implicit Bias in “Borden Murders”
Sarah Miller’s documentary novel “The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden & The Trial of the Century” illustrated the brutal murder of Andrew and Abby Borden and its aftermath. The novel starts with the introduction of the murder, setting up the scene and introducing the main suspect: Lizzie Borden, the first witness of the crime scene, daughter to Andrew Borden, and stepdaughter to Abby Borden. The novel then dramatically unfolds into the trial of Lizzie Borden and ponders upon a particular question: Did Lizzie do it? And if not, who did?
This book is a highly compelling read, where surprises peak around every turn-of-the-page. Please scroll down to see the analysis of the main ideas and recurring themes from this murder mystery.
The first central idea I discovered was: The truth can have many possibilities, and it is wrong and unfair assumptions. I realized this was the main idea because the author hints early on in the book that the actual culprit is unknown, and all of the speculations are simply baseless assumptions.
The second central idea that I discovered was: Racism and sexism make up essential parts of implicit bias. I picked up this main theme while connecting the dots between racial references and outside research. This is crucial to understanding why my first theme is actual (I’ll explain this more if you read on). I used two sources on this page, so credits to Smithsonian Magazine and the National Humanities Center.
On the notebook page below, I analyzed some possible causes or incentives for Lizzie Borden to commit the murder. I also briefly mentioned the elements that went into the story, which contributed to its ultimate ending, an unsolved mystery. I connected the two of my main ideas and discovered the cause-and-effect relationship between them, which I did not expect. In other words, main idea 2 is established upon the premise of main idea 1.
Thank you for reading this blog post! Hope you have picked up something useful! Please check out the book because it is a fun read for those who love an unsolved mystery!
Am I a Renaissance Humanist?
I am probably 90.523% renaissance humanist. Since I answered 4 out of 5 for 3 elements and 5 out of 5 for 2 elements, I think that renaissance humanist values matter to me a lot. I firmly believe in these humanist values and I think that they matter a lot to me in my daily life as well. So I think it is safe for me to say that I am primarily a renaissance humanist!
“So I’ve Killed Him”: A Deeper Analysis of Lamb to the Slaughter and A Short Related Found Poem
This found poem was taken as an excerpt from the 4th and 5th page of “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl. It shows the external person versus person conflict that occurs between protagonist (also antagonist) Mary Maloney and her husband Patrick Maloney. During the rising action of the story, the conflict is revealed when Patrick Maloney informs Mary Maloney about his desire for divorce. Then, in the climax, the angry Mary Maloney kills her husband with their soon-to-be supper lamb chop. I highlight this person versus person conflict in my poem through descriptions of Mary Maloney’s change of emotion (“frightened”, “bewildered”, “dazed horror” to “shock”, “cold”, “surprised”) as well as the cold and dark dialogue between the divorced wife and husband.
Aside from the more obvious person versus person conflict, this story also highlights a person versus society conflict. In this case, the conflict occurs between Mary Maloney and a men biased society. I highlight this conflict in my poem through selective quotes from the text: the husband (a man in this case) raises the divorce forcefully despite his wife’s opposition (“I’ll give you money and see you are looked after”), showing that he is the one making a majority of the decisions in this household. However, the women retaliates by killing the man (“So I’ve killed him”), putting him in a position below her, both physically and emotionally, and retaliating against the society of 1953 (which was extremely male biased). Tanusy 2018 affirms this person versus society conflict in her earlier work. This conflict also becomes one of the major themes in the story because the text acts as a portal between a world where men is in control (before Mary kills Patrick) and where men lose control (after Mary kills Patrick).
Justification for Artistic Decisions: I left the majority of my page white as a way to make my dark drawings and text pop up better. I chose to put the text and my drawings in black as to emphasize the darkness of the society presented in the story, and I highlighted my found poem in yellow to make it appear brighter among the more neutral colors. As for the words and pictures, I chose to put the word “lamb” in sharp letters because lamb, in this case, would represent the sharp and hard object that killed Patrick, while simultaneously representing Patrick as the victim of the killing. I chose to put the word “slaughter” in curved and smooth letters because slaughter represents the smooth act committed by Mary Maloney to kill her husband. I also drew a lamb chop, as well as the symbol of a female shooting an arrow into the symbol of a male, to represent how women took power over men.
PD 8 Food Waste Blog Post
Q: What was your biggest obstacle?
A: My biggest obstacle was basically designing my prototype. Since my client Audrey is too lazy to pick up stuff at the bottom of her bowl, I had to design something that made accessing the food easier. At first, I thought I could just design utensils that are extra long. But firstly, how do I make sure these utensils can be used for any type of “deep bowls”? Also, these long utensils are pretty hard to control, which means I probably have to make some adjustments to the bowl to make it accustomed for normal utensils. I got inspiration from a hot pot shop I ate at recently before lock down happened, and they had a mechanism where there would be a metal plate at the bottom at the pot, and when you press a button, than metal plate pushes the food up from the soup. I thought that would be a good idea, except I would replace the mechanical engineering of the button with a spring, that would be weighed down by the food, and it would rise as the food got lighter.
Q: What was a skill you developed?
A: A skill I developed through this time was my sketching skills on Procreate. Through the sketching summative, I was able to learn how to use Procreate to add combine adding text and pictures together, as well as using different layers on Procreate to make working easier for me. A big benefit of doing technical art for sketching is that you can perfect each angle and each line of your shapes, which makes them look more professional and clean. I also focused on learning how to do that when sketching on Procreate.
Q: What do you want to change about your project?
A: I’d like to change the spring part of my project. While experimenting with my prototype, I feel like even when there was a lot of food, when it wasn’t heavy enough, the spring wouldn’t go down. My bowl was full of food, yet the spring still wouldn’t go down. If it still was like that, the food would seep outside of the bowl. So I would like to change it. Maybe some type of mechanical arm would work better, but I think that would require a lot more engineering.
Q: What is one piece of advice you would give to future students in this project?
A: One piece of advice I would give to future students of this project is to look around your daily life for inspiration. At first, when we started the project, I was kinda lost at what to design to solve the problem of the food being too deep into the bowl. I thought it was sort of an unsolvable problem, or there would be ways to solve it like dumping the food into a more shallow bowl. However, after looking around the house and just day dreaming, I thought of the example of a hot pot, which was able to bring the food up. So for anyone who is stuck, looking around your daily life or simply day dreaming about the past can be helpful, even though they might sound time wasting.
Q: Why do you think your prototype successful?
A: Overall, I think my prototype was a success. It was able to lift a certain amount of food and served the purpose of preventing scraps from sticking at the very bottom of a deep bowl. I do wish that it would’ve worked better because currently, it is only accustomed for foods that are square shaped, which is not super ideal.
PD 8 Design Speaker
Q. What were some struggles and challenges you faced?
A. One of the biggest challenges I faced while designing my speaker was the hinge. Everything went well, but when it was time to assemble the hinge, my box wouldn’t close. So I had to cut a piece into my box and assemble the hinge in from the inside.
Q. What am I most proud of in my speaker?
A. I am most proud of the overall design of the speaker. I feel like it was able to fit with my retro aesthetic really well.
Q. What skill did I improve on the most?
A. I improved on my skills of designing the most. I was able to learn how to use tools such as MakerCase or Affinity Designer to design my speaker, which was really helpful.
My Pet Chair/House
- My biggest success this time was the overall appearance of my project. I think it came out looking pretty nice, so I am overall happy with this result
- My biggest obstacle this time was the time. Since we only had two classes to finish the project and my design was originally quite complicated, I had to take bits and pieces out of my design to make the time.
Cardboard Arcade Game: Whack-A-Mole
- My biggest success was the hammer part of the game. It was quite successful and turned out really cool. We were using a lot of different tools for the hammer and I felt like it was also one of the hardest parts of our design
- If I did this again, one thing I would do differently would be the “moles”. When we started playing the game, the strings started breaking for the moles, so we had to do a different approach and cut off the strings
- One piece of advice I would give a future student doing this project would be not to rush, and also focus more of your time on adjusting the actual functional features of your game. Also, it is important to have a lot of fun while making your cardboard arcade game.
- Overall, I think this product was successful because we had a good collaboration and we were able to finish the game. Also, we had fun with the 4th graders hitting our heads while we were inside our game.
- Skills that I learned or developed are some of my skills while operating big machines. I had to learn how to use a lot of the machinery when I made the hammer because it required cutting and shaping the foam. So, it took a lot of challenges but I felt like I learned.
Science, Design, Engineering: Cup Insulator Challenge
CUP CHALLENGE
