Module 3: Assignment 1

Ellen Wetli
Module 3: Metaphor as Action
Assignment 1
Laura Mandell

In today’s society, we are all well aware of the prison overload problems. For example, in New Orleans during 2004, only 7% of the people arrested were sent to jail (From a NOPD survey in The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley). Hundreds of thousands of murderers every year are allowed to walk free due to the fact that there just isn’t enough room for everyone. The United States needs to develop alternative solutions. If we treat the war on drugs as an actual war, then we’ll be strategically hunting down drug lords and bombing meth labs. Even after we have successfully destroyed every ounce of drug in the United States, thousands will still be addicted. It’s just like taking a donut away from a hungry kid. Just because the donut is gone doesn’t mean his/her hunger is. The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, or Proposition 36 encourages us to treat drug addiction as a medical disease, which in fact it is. This act provides a drug rehabilitation alternative to convicted drug addicts who are destined to end up behind bars. Face it, drug addiction usually increases when a person is admitted into prison. Peer pressure for one; everyone is already doing it. Also there seems to be no reason not to. A person is on his/her own for what could be a very long time and a little snort can actually make the upcoming years more bearable. Eventually when these people get out, their drug addiction has not gone away, and it is quite likely that they will end up right back in prison for possession again. In California under the new act, “the population of drug users behind bars for possession diminished by 30%” (Bernstein, Nell. “The war off drugs”). So why not end this vicious cycle with Proposition 36?
Of course, for our money hungry government, this new act is saving millions of dollars each year. A war usually costs quite a bit and forces the government to reduce spending on programs that improve America. This act does not do that, so that provides another example of why the metaphor “war on drugs” is not the best choice. “California saved $95 million the first year it enforced Proposition 36” (Bernstein, Nell. “The war off drugs”). Just imagine how much money it would save if the entire United States adopted this proposition. Then the government could focus more on improving the nation rather than housing its criminals.
The war metaphor actually portrays drug addicts as enemies of the nation who need to be punished, when in reality, they need saved. We cannot treat these drug addicts as prisoners of war because they are our people. Their lives affect the lives of hundreds of other citizens of the United States, including thousands of young children; We need to improve society, not hinder it. Picture yourself back in grade school. The students who were the slowest in understanding a concept were always the ones that received the most help. They were not banished to the back of the room and forgotten. They were brought to the front and encouraged to keep trying. We need to treat the drug addicts of the nation like slow children rather than “hostel enemies”. To improve their lives, they need a little help from us. They need to be put in hospitals where they can get the assistance they need. Then they can eventually enter society again as productive, drug-free citizens.

Module 1: Assignment 2

Ellen Wetli
H101-F
Laura Mandell
Module 1-Assignment 2

Many aspects of anger are concealed when we limit its meaning to fire or dynamite. Even though fire refers to heat and the ‘anger is heat’ metaphor covers a vast majority of the facets of anger, it still hides some other characteristics of anger. Anger can be an internal struggle. When a person “explodes with rage,” he/she is no longer “wrestling with his/ her anger.” Another example of a characteristic of anger which is concealed by the metaphoric fire and heat analogy is insanity, such as “If he yells at me one more time, I’m going to go crazy.” Both of these examples are metaphoric characteristics of anger that are concealed when we automatically assign anger to relate to fire or dynamite. However, William Blake offered the metaphor anger is an apple tree in “A Poison Tree.” He states that with each passing day his anger “grows” such as a tree maturing to eventually bear fruit. Establishing this connection opens many doors to what aspects of anger this metaphor pertains to. For starters, the metaphor anger is internal pressure can apply to this poem. Instead of telling his enemy that the narrator is angry with him, the narrator held it in and his “wrath did grow,” as would a gas pocket in someone’s intestines or another medical phenomenon that would put a great amount of internal pressure on the rest of our organs. Another example of a metaphor that is now highlighted by Blake’s new definition is anger is fluid in a container. Blake is “filled with anger” because he cannot “spill it” to his enemy. These metaphors are similar to how fluid in a container is characterized, and many more metaphors about fluid in a container can apply to this situation. Yet another example of a highlighted metaphor is anger is a burden. He narrated how his anger grew and grew with his tears and how it consumed him. He “carried” his anger around with him everywhere, similar to any sort of burden one would carry with him/her. Similar to this metaphor, another, anger is a presence, could also be highlighted in this situation. Because he didn’t tell his enemy about his anger, it “lingered on” for days. This characteristic is similar to any sort of presence in our life. These presences can be another emotion such as misery lingering in our bodies after a loved one has died or even a tangible sensation such as the warmth lingering on one’s lips after a lover’s kiss. Anger can also linger in one’s thoughts and actions. Blake’s metaphor, anger is an apple tree, can also hide some aspects of anger. Primarily, fire and an explosion are two of the most common aspects of anger. Another metaphor hidden by Blake’s new definition is anger being a dangerous animal. Blake’s metaphor does not focus on the dynamic force of what anger can become. He focuses more on how bottling the anger inside us slowly leads to the destruction of ourselves and others.
Ordinarily, we would say sentences pertaining to plants and fruit when we would use Blake’s definition of anger metaphorically being an apple tree. For example, we might say “Jericho’s lashing words were sprouting from her intense anger,” or “ His intense anger absorbed every lie his cheating girlfriend said and stored it.” ‘Stored,’ in this text, would actually be the metaphoric anger as a container. William Blake actually used on of these metaphoric statements in his poem when he said that his fears watered his anger. Some other sentences we might say pertaining primarily to the apple would be “His anger tasted the sweet taste of revenge when he went out and cheated on his cheating girlfriend,” or “Her annoyance ripened into full blown rage when her brother continued to pester her all afternoon then steal her favorite movie.” We can us many different metaphoric characteristics of anger to portray the exact emotion we want the reader to feel or we want to feel ourselves.

Introduction-Assignment 2

Ellen Wetli
Laura Mandell
Metaphor as a Technology
Introduction- Assignment 2


1. Socrates primarily agreed with Thamus, a character from his Egyptian story, that “letters” would ‘create forgetfulness in learners’ souls, because they would not use their memories.’ This is not true because even if a person does record and idea or event, he/she don’t rightly forget it. He also noted that writing hurts human beings because they cannot defend their views to a reader. Therefore, we are deprived of learning the tools of how to defend our own opinions when they are challenged. Also, we lack the knowledge of when we should defend ourselves and when we should be silent. I agree with Socrates with this concept because imagine that a person writes a beautiful argumentitive statement about a certain political issue. If he/she cannot defend the ideas and expand on the written arguments in the statement, then people are not likely to fully agree with him/her.
Goody would most certainly not agree with Socrates’s theory that writing is primary used for “recreation” and “amusement” because he believes that literacy is ‘fundamental to the history of all “advanced” societies.’ Goody states that the higher the literacy rate in a country is the more technologically and sociologically advanced it is because we can do much more without ‘face to face’ confrontation. He means that it is much more efficient to spread our intellectual ideas throughout the world through writings than by individual confrontation. I agree with Goody’s concept because the most powerful countries in the world today (United States, England, Germany, China, etc.) are those which have the highest intellect. For example, the highest scores on national tests, the highest percentage of high school students graduating, and hundreds of other intellectual statistics are usually claimed by these powerful countries. Most of the time, it is unheard of for a boy from a small African village (where the literacy rate is usually lower) to attend an elite Ivy League university. Goody says that when we take time to write ideas in a logical fashion, their influences can be spread much further and much more accurately than by word of mouth. Writing preserves those ideas that would have ‘ceased to exist’. Written records have taught us about events in the past and how we can look to the future. “History is a gateway to the future,” and without written records, we would not have a clear understanding of this gateway.

2. I don’t see writing as a ‘technology’ as Goody does. He states that the “technology of the intellect” is the “way that writing affects cognitive or intellectual operations.” It is a very complicated process for our brains to be trained to extract information from writing materials and then interpret it. It requires an “acquisition of new motor skills, and different uses of eyesight.” Our brains are influenced by the ‘internal-external interaction” of writings, which is an interaction between what we read word for word and how we interpret it based on past occurrences or even personal opinions. He also stated in his article some examples of the material aspect of technology of the intellect such as mathematical tables, where “writing is a prerequisite.” He means that the literate people in society are able to expand their knowledge by advantage of additional tools that illiterate people would not decipher. The word ‘technology’ should not be expanded to included writing and/or other means for thinking. When I think of technology, I think of new Ipods or PDAs. I think of a great amount of memory and features compressed into smaller and smaller versions of previous equipment. I understand that the ‘technology of intellect’ is a rather complicated concept and that, in fact, it does help us pursue higher education with more exposure to resources. It is also similar to technology in that it is a broad concept and branches out to many aspects of our mind and the intellectual world of information. Perhaps, one day I will be faced with a difficult problem where I might want to use my intellect in a broader sense to obtain more information. However, it will probably never cross my mind that I am relying on the expanded definition of technology to solve my problem because I don’t think of technology in that aspect. Then again, after reading these essays perhaps one day I will.