hongrui peng

 "Sounds of Silence" - Simon & Garfunkel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7McpVPlidc -Billed as "exciting new sounds in the folk tradition", Sounds of Silence consists of five stanzas, which mainly describes the conflict between spiritual and material values in our world. The song has been considered as folklore because it focuses on the restless dream of the narrator, including numerous allegorical implications such as the darkness, void, spirits, and weird people. The lyrics have strong cultural and religious implications. In addition, he song itself is a discussion of a spiritual experience and the material culture, which is in line with the characteristics of folklore. - Sounds of Silence significantly impresses me since the implications are extremely profound. The writer of the song tries to warn people not to spend too much time on blindly worshiping meaningless things, indicating that the silence between people is abnormally growing, which reduces th...

Journal question 5: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH In the novel, these are the main slogans used by the Party to psychologically control its people. These slogans indicate an obvious contradictory paradox in themselves. The purpose of these slogans is to create the idea of "doublethink", weakening the individuality and convincing people that everything done by the Party is for the welfare of people and every policy passed by the government is naturally justified. Anyone with normal thoughts and common sense, however, can easily point out the contradictions: war is the opposite of peace; freedom contradicts slavery; ignorance means the lack of strength. These slogans can be interpreted in another aspect: war is cruel by nature, which reminds people to cherish the peace; freedom may cause adverse effects on people since being free means that one is able to do something dangerous or irrational to restrict himself, and slavery can protect people from ...

Journal question 6: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." --George Orwell The quotation above indicates a way of how dictators utilize the political means of manipulating history to control people's mind. In the novel, George Orwell presents a logic chain: when things happen in the current reality, people may view the past to see if there is any precedent in the history, which helps them to construct their own opinion and judgment of what is happening currently. In other words, the past can be treated  essentially as a set of conditions that justify or encourage future goals.  The Party, however, exploits this principle, distorting the real history and prohibiting people from knowing the truth, which compels people to work for the Party's goals. In the real world, things like that actually happen. The China government, for example, erased some historical truth from certain aspects; any trace of historical events i...

Journal question 8: Discuss Winston Smith as a heroic figure. What qualities does he possess that could define him as one. Heroes, known as a group of people that are able to recognize and seek the true nature of the world, differ from ordinary people in both their willingness to fight for something great and ability to reveal the truth. Winston Smith, who refuses to believe the Party as others do, doubts the rightfulness of the Party and Big Brother. Winston is willing to risk his life for overthrowing the dictatorship of Oceania, even though he knows that he will eventually fail and be caught from the very beginning. According to the novel, Winston tries his best to fit in society, pretending to be a fanatical supporter of the Party but holds himself apart from it at the same time. He does tiny things to fight against the Party, such as recording in the diary and having a relationship with Julia. Winston is able to gain an insight into the nature of this sick society of dictat...

1. A book (in fact, a series of books) that has left a lasting impression on me is A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of epic fantasy novels by the American writer George R.R. Martin. Despite the fact that its adaptation Game of Thornes got a ridiculous, unreasonable, annoying ending that pissed every fan of the novel off, A Song of Ice and Fire  is probably the most extraordinary epic novel I have ever read. Martin creates an imaginary world composed of several kingdoms, utilizing his outstanding imagination to make everything alive. I read the first book of the series when I was in middle school, and I immediately fell in love with it because it revealed the conflict between humanity and barbarity. I was drawn to every scene of the novel, and I couldn't help thinking about questions like "what will happen after this event?" or "is this king going to die?" It is well worth reading either for fun or deep thinking. 2. I'm Hongrui, and this is my second year...