The Cave...

 So since our group projects are coming up, I thought it best to get my butt in gear and read my chapter in Frye... which is the cave. It was intense, and I finished the reading with a headache and utter confusion... but I will try to reiterate what I have just read... Sorry for any headaches I cause.. or confusion.. I just want for everyone else to be as confused as me... Here we go! The cave deals with themes of descent usually pertaining to death and hell (shocking). Frye mentioned that we rise up or climb ladders or towers with the prospect of falling or descending downward (230). The cave to me, appeared to be a place where people have the ability to ascend up again and not be left in darkness like those too far gone (possibly the furnace).  On page 231 there is a quote that reads like this, "Hell is social and individual...a kingdom of the dead." In this descent world, people have no possessions, and once you cross into this world, you are called a shade.  this possession of nothing is known as Katabsis or danse macabre. the thing I found to be most compelling is the idea of dreams, and Freud. even our dreams are considered a lower psyche which is a form of the descent or inner workings of hell.  our dreams extend down into the sub conscious and Frye writes, "Descent to dream worlds go deeper than hell... they go deeper than shallow graves of death". so without even knowing it, every night subconsciously we are descending downward past hell. another theme mentioned is that of Shakespeare. these ghosts are from the depths of hell but refuse to stay there, this notion of the descent and the return, like the ghost in Hamlet.  the descent can also be looked at as a social or political entity. for example, socially Adam was cast out of the garden of eden and Cain was cast out of society for murder. Exile is a form of a downward spiral. another prominent theme is that of repression and then release. sky metaphors became mechanical and alienating, when people used to look to the sky thinking that God was up there looking down upon us. there is a lot, and I mean a lot of talk about William Blake, Frye loves his ideals especially in innocence v. experience.  and children putting the world view in their subconscious. .... I am still attempting to figure the chapter out, and making some progress. But, hopefully this helped a little bit!

 

Jehovah's Witnesses

So one of my good friends is, or rather was a Jehovah's Witness. As a child he attended church  multiple times a week, you are spreading the word of God constantly. (Like Mormons). He told me he knows the Bible pretty well, even though now, he is not active in the religion. He, told me that growing up, they never celebrated holidays, this including Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Valentines day.. etc. As someone who has grown up celebrating each of these holidays, and never missing a big meal, I found all of this information hard to grasp. And of course, since I had no prior knowledge of him being a Jehovah's witness, I had invited him to join my family and I for Thanksgiving... woops...I asked him, "So what happens if I want to throw you a big birthday party, or give you a Christmas gift?" He looked at me intensely and replied, "Well, you hope that the people closest to you would respect and understand, that I or (we) cannot accept gifts...It is nothing personal, but that is just how we were raised.. didn't make us very popular at sleepover birthday parties..." This concept of not celebrating holidays still blows my mind. but then again, I can see where he is coming from as well.. we don't need these big holidays to celebrate God or giving thanks, we can do these things on a daily basis if we so choose. "We don't need a reason to give gifts to people on specific days, if you want to get someone a gift, get them a gift!"- This I agree with 100%. This talk with him was an intriguing one, it opened a lot of doors for me, and made me curious about the unknown. Until then, at least to my knowledge, I had never met a Jehovah's Witness. Learn something new everyday...