Good morning everyone! My name is Dannie Joram and I m excited to be. here today! For those of you that don t know, which is probably most of you, I

Transcription

1 Dannie Joram DCC 310 Final Project Good morning everyone! My name is Dannie Joram and I m excited to be here today! For those of you that don t know, which is probably most of you, I was also a member of the Delta College, back 25 years ago, which sounds like a long time ago when you think about it. But anyways, I was just like you, sitting in the audience listening to a guest speaker thinking the same as you: I m bored. I m tired. I don t want to be here. Can I go back to bed? I know getting up early on a Saturday to make a speech isn t the most appealing thing to do, but later on in life, say 25 years later, you re going to look back on these days with pride, knowing you learned something and that you helped others learn something as well. It s crazy to think some of the professors here today are professors I had while I was here, like good old Dr. Stoller. When he wasn t talking about his farm back home in Iowa, he was a pretty cool professor. In fact, we always liked hearing the weekly updates on his chickens, and we were disappointed when there wasn t any new news. As a teacher, he was pretty cool. Although sometimes we d get these really random s where he s having a conversation with a cyber student and we d wonder if he was ok. They were always funny to read, but I always found myself questioning Dr. Stoller s sanity a little bit afterwards. But he did make us breakfast once, so it kind of evens out. But you re guaranteed to learn new things with Dr. Stoller. For example, Zoroastrianism. I didn t know that existed until Dr. Stoller told us about it. I

2 still thought he was making it up just to mess around with us, until he had us read the Zoroastrian bible. I think my head hurt while reading that. And you re bound to be pros on the Bible, that s for sure. That seemed like a never-ending unit. And if you had Dr. Stoller for both Human Heritage and Society and Culture, then you were in for a treat with double the learning of the Bible. And there really isn t any way to make learning the Bible fun, either. But enough about Dr. Stoller and his teaching methods. He did have a way with making final projects interesting. One of the main things I remembered while in Dr. Stoller s Human Heritage 2 class was the final paper we wrote. This paper focused on how the idea of humanity had changed over time and how authors used satire to convey their understanding of what humanity was and how they disapproved of it. I remember choosing two stories to compare how satire was used to critique humanity- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a medieval English tale, and Gulliver s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was set in medieval England during the time of the King Arthur and his round table. A mysterious green knight showed up at Arthur s palace during a Christmas feast and challenged the knights to a game. When no one answered the challenge, King Arthur himself volunteered. Only then did Sir Gawain volunteer as tribute so his king wouldn t have to. The green knight dared Gawain to cut his head off, and then in a year the green knight would do the same. Gawain chopped the knight s head off, but the knight didn t die. He just picked up his head and said See you in a year. A year goes by, and

3 like a good knight, he goes to find the green knight to repay his favor. He comes across a castle where the lord welcomed him and let him stay for the Christmas festivities. He stayed for three days, doing nothing and being tempted by the lord s wife, while the lord went hunting. After the third day the knight goes to find the green knight. He finds the knight in a grotto and braces himself for his death blow. The first time around, Gawain got scared and flinched, with only his neck being scraped. The second time, right as the knight was about to hit him, he stopped. The knight revealed himself to be the lord of the castle and told him of all the tests that he had passed. The only reason Gawain was cut on the neck was because he took the gift of the sash from his wife, which was actually the witch Morgana. Gawain, although ashamed, goes back to King Arthur and tells his story and lives happily ever after. This story, although comical, is also satiric. The author, who is unknown, was poking fun at the knights and of the concept of chivalry. Being chivalrous meant being fearless and strong and willing to protect their king at any cost. Yet, these knights weren t all that chivalrous. Instead of rising to the green knight s challenge, they just sat back and waited. It was only when the king himself volunteered that Gawain took his place. These knights were more concerned about looking good rather than fighting well. They were all dressed in fancy clothes with ornate decorations and adornments, whereas the green knight was covered head to toe in green armor, the more appropriate attire for a knight. The author wanted to make the point that these Knights of the Round Table were greedy and corrupt. They were consumed with the idea of materialism

4 than chivalry and it affected their lifestyle. They weren t protecting towns and people; they were in the great hall eating their hearts out. He was showing how truly cowardly these knights were acting by comparing them to the green knight, who offered such a bold challenge. The other story is Gulliver s Travels by Jonathan Swift. We watched this movie in class, which is another cool thing about Dr. Stoller. He planned movies in the syllabus instead of always doing lectures or discussions. Anyways, this movie focused on the Dr. Gulliver, who had been shipwrecked and presumed dead. But really, for the eight years he was gone, he was actually in a parallel universe, trying to find his way back home. During his time away, he met and lived with many groups of beings, all of various personalities, ideologies and forms. The movie transitioned from his telling of his stories to him back in real life, once he returned. His wife and son were living with the new village doctor when they found Gulliver and let him live in the house. The doctor, Dr. Bates, was getting fed up with all the nonsense Gulliver was talking and admitted him into the local mental institution. There, Gulliver continued telling his story, but he told them to the other patients instead of his son. The movie went on, flipping between his travels and his stay at the mental hospital. No one believed a word Gulliver was saying, except for his son, Tom and his wife, Mary, although she never outright admitted it. Once she found out Dr. Bates was deceiving her, she asked for a mental evaluation to bring Gulliver home. This trial turned into a lecture by Gulliver about his final adventures with the

5 Houyhnhnms, which proved to be a very influential part of his trip. The Houyhnhnms were horses that could talk. They lived without rules or restriction there was never any war or conflicts between them. Gulliver became close with one horse, named Mistress, and they would talk about how life was between the horses and the English people. Ultimately, Tom was the deciding factor in the trial when he came holding the miniature sheep that Gulliver kept with him in his travel bag. Everyone was appalled when they saw the sheep and Gulliver was allowed to go home. He too lived happily ever after with his wife and son. This story is satiric because every group of people that Gulliver met while on his adventure represented a different group of people in England or Europe. Swift is satirizing England and the differing viewpoints that it has. The same applied when Gulliver was in real life. The doctors in the mental institution also represented the Enlightened thinkers of the day, where they only focused on reason and morals and not on feelings or fantasy. Swift wanted people to understand that the English people of the eighteenth century were corrupt, greedy and selfish. They only focused on themselves and what they thought was right. He s also poking fun at Enlightenment as a whole by suggesting that only living based on reason or morals is silly, that there needs to be an aspect of emotion or fantasy involved. The two viewpoints in the movie do relate to each other. They re both pointing out the flaws of the people, either the people that Gulliver meets during his travels, or the people that he encounters while in the mental facility. He s showing that they re morally corrupt and too focused on their ideas to understand other people s ideas. As

6 the author, Jonathan Swift wanted society to realize their flaws and to change them. He put a big emphasis on the horse culture, so maybe he was suggesting that his society change like them, where everything was much simpler and there wasn t any conflict. However, as the screenwriter for the movie, Simon Moore wanted his audience to realize what Swift was dealing with in his time that would encourage him to write this book. He wanted us to understand that Enlightenment, although it spurred on revolutionary thinking, wasn t everything that it was cracked up to be. He wanted people to understand this by showing how enlightened thinkers acted, through the eyes of Swift. However, everyone s roles in the movie were a bit over-dramatized, but that was to show exactly how people acted. They were the enlightened thinkers who refused to think anything else, like Dr. Bates and his colleagues and how adamant they were on keeping Gulliver in the mental facility. There were the Romantics, like Tom, who liked to believe in things that enlightened thinkers thought were taboo. Then there is the rest of society that didn t know what to think, like Mary. She flip-flopped her ideas based on what other people told her. I ve always felt the stronger critique lied with Gulliver s Travels because life in the 1700s was more complex than during the time of King Arthur. Swift was digging deeper into the human mind by claiming people were morally corrupt and selfish. The most complex idea during the 1300s in England was chivalry, and that was only scratching the surface. It wasn t focusing on why people acted the way they did, but rather how they acted the way they did. In

7 either case, this assignment helped me realize that new ideas can change people, for better or worse. The human mind is always evolving and with that, comes deeper and more complex thoughts and ideologies. Although it does seem scary, it s also interesting to understand where the next big idea will come from or who ll think of it. Who knows, maybe that new idea will be created by one of you here in the audience. Never know! But to bring this back into a Delta perspective, especially one that I lived in, everyone comes from a different place. With that, comes differing ideas. The cool thing is that we all come together with our similarities and differences and merge together. We all become friends and can share those ideas with each other, with the help of our professors, right Dr. Stoller? He was always making us think and share our thoughts, even though I was never one to contribute to a discussion. So, here is my suggestion to all of you. Keep thinking. Encourage yourselves and others to ponder life. A world where we all think alike would be boring. To keep life interesting, wonder! Ask questions, make comments, just make yourself heard. It can only help you. I would like to thank the Delta College for inviting me to speak today at the World Conference. I feel very honored to come back and speak, knowing 25 years ago, I was sitting in the audience listening to our guest speaker. The Delta College always held a special place in my heart and to be able to return and impart my wisdom onto you all is an amazing feeling, even though it does make me feel old. I would like to also congratulate the Delta College on putting on

8 such a wonderful event as the World Conference so students can showcase their talents and their research to everyone in the College. It s a time to celebrate the hard work the Delta students have done in such a fun atmosphere and I m honored to be a part of it this year! Delta College is such a unique program that ensures the success for all its students, I being one of them, and I wish the program and the faculty all the best in continuing to be a successful and inspiring institution. I also would like to wish Dr. Stoller a happy retirement as well. Even though I may have poked some fun at you earlier, you were a pretty awesome professor and I wish you all the best in your future adventures. Enjoy your retirement! And thank you again to everyone here in Delta and let the activities begin!