Response Essay: Caspar David Friedrich and "The Stages of Life"

Upon watching the presentation on Caspar David Friedrich, I was absolutely fascinated with the incredible paintings that he created. Unfortunately, I was too engrossed in a lot of the paintings to really take in a lot of the information. I ended up spending the rest of that afternoon looking at a lot of his paintings, and with each one, I fell more and more in love with his work. I decided to read more about his life and what other things he contributed to Germany and the Germanic people aside from such beautiful paintings.

He is known as one of the largest figures in Romantic painting, so I decided to start with that. German Romanticism was the dominant style in Europe around the late 1700s and early 1800s, right around the time that Friedrich lived. Born out of the German Enlightenment of the late 1700s, Romanticism also focused on the individual and their place in the larger world. There was a greater interest in folklore and legends of the middle ages. This was evident in Friedrich’s paintings as he painted vast landscapes and waterscapes.

I was actually surprised to see that Romanticism was a much larger movement. I had taken a few art history classes prior, and for some reason, Romanticism was always passed over as if it wasn’t as important. We did see some paintings, such as Friedrich’s own Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, his most famous work. However, a lot of this period is glossed over. It seems my professors favored the Baroque or Expressionist periods. Which is dumb, because I have found a lot of interest and beauty in these Romantic photos. I was also very surprised to see that the Romantic movement expanded beyond paintings, and that there were some very significant names that were attached to the movement. I had already been aware of and had loved some artists that were mentioned to have been involved in the movement, such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Heinrick Heine, and even Goethe.

If I had to pick a particular favorite piece that spoke to me, it might have to be Friedrich’s last painting, The Stages of Life, which is posted below. The staging of the painting alone is enough to stare at for a few minutes, but the lighting and color choices are so intricately made. The beauty of the yellow and blue clouds is very calming, suggesting the thought of an afterlife heaven. The ship and boats suggest the death, coming for the old man who is in the foreground.

Each character represents another stage of life as well. The two children represent the youth, obviously in their age, but also in the fact that they focus mostly on the tiny flag in their hands. They’re more focused on the immediate life around them rather than some of the much larger things happening in the world around them. The adults, presumably the parents, represent the young adults to the middle age. They represent two things felt by many of people their age. The woman looks on to her children, representing the nostalgia for childhood, a time when things were fresh, new, and simple. The man looks towards the old man, his father. This possibly suggests him looking out into the world around him, but I see him looking at his father, the man he is going to become. Both of these adults are focused on the past and the present, like I feel a lot of people my age and only a few years my senior feel. The old I also think it’s interesting how none of these characters are looking at the boats, suggesting that we never truly accept death in most of life’s stages. The children simply are not aware of the boat, and the younger adults are clearly aware of it, but are choosing to not look at it. This suggests that while they’re aware of their deaths, they choose to ignore it, either because it scares them or because they feel it does not concern them.

The  one man that can see the whole picture is the old man in the foreground. He is taking it all in. The ships, the clouds, his younger family, and the world around him. He is walking toward the ships, accepting his death. He’s lived his life, and he’s ready for what’s after, whatever it may be.

It’s beautiful, and this is just one of his many artworks. He produced so many works, some which contain just as many ideas and interpretations as just this one. I fully intend to look more in depth at his other works. They’re all so very personal and still so vast and larger than life. I think Caspar David Friedrich is one of, if not my new favorite artist.

Word Count: 801

Response Essay: Maus and Maus II

I have always had a soft spot for graphic novels, and was excited to learn that we would be reading the Maus books for this class. I had seen them and had been interested, but hadn’t yet read them. This was a really good push for me to do so, for obvious reasons.

As much as I loved book II of Maus, it was book I: My Father Bleeds History that really drew my attention and fascination. Most Holocaust stories that I’ve read would cover mostly what happened after the Jews were in the concentration camps, and this narrative spent a lot of time around Vladek’s journey evading the Nazis. That, combined with the other narrative of Art learning all this from Vladek made the presentation of the story very fresh. This did continue on to book II, as well, but I feel that a lot of the narrative’s strength was in this first half. As a lot of the book is Vladek narrowly evading capture right under the German noses, it creates a tension that is not usually seen in Holocaust stories. In particular, the scenes that place Vladek in ornate hiding places. Seeing how these were laid out visually and not just having to infer from words was really helpful. These claustrophobic scenes just made the whole story much more horrifying.

I was drawn to many things in these book, but if I had to choose one particular thing that drew me in, it would be the art style and visual metaphors. There is the obvious visual metaphor between cat and mouse, but the way Spiegelman draws these characters and scenes adds a lot of atmosphere to the books. The angled and simplified character designs contrast with a lot of the scenes of brutality depicted in the book. The scenes give a very distorted look that barely looks real, as if these horrors were simply imagined. These horrors were, of course, not imagined at all, but seeing these almost cute characters go through horrible events, as pictured in page 72 and 95 of Book II seem even more brutal. The hatching and heavy shadows are raw, haunting, and shocking, managing to be easy to interpret without losing any of the horror that the scenes depicted should have.

The biggest section of art that stood out to me was the Prisoner on the Hell Planet, the short comic that Art made discussing how his mother’s suicide still grips him. I’m sure that this is his real artwork, but seeing such a vastly different drawing style helped bring this particular section of narrative ahead of the rest of the story. It shows how big of an affect Anja’s suicide had affected her son. The different drawing style, while showing a neat shot of how Art’s drawing style evolved, also symbolized how this one emotion was so big and daunting, and how it had such a distinct effect on him emotionally.

Overall, these books were incredible and I would recommend them to anyone without a second thought. The attention to detail, the simple yet powerful storytelling, the subject matter, and even the empty themes of family and loss are universal, and this is one of the most unique and brilliant ways of conveying a story that is told so often it almost doesn’t bite as hard.

555 words

Untranslatable German Words (11/18)

• Kehrwoche: Week of cleaning. Sort of a Spring Cleaning, but for Germans.
• Schnapsidee: An idea had while drunk.
• Drachenfutter: sort of a peace offering.
• Schadenfreude: Happiness at the misfortune of others.
• Knoblauchfahne: Breath that smells like garlic
• Fernweh: desire to see foreign places
• Warmduscher: a wimp

completed with Dalton S.

GERMAN FESTIVITIES AND FOOD

The German events and foods that interest us were:

• Oktoberfest
• Karneval
• Weihnachtsmarkt
• Currywurst
• Spaetzle
• Weisswurst mit Brezel
• Sauerkraut und Sauerbraten

Cultural Comparisons (11/16)

DRIVING

• It was surprising that gas is twice as much and that there are much fewer automatic transmission cars in Germany.
• We knew that there were no speed limits on the autobahn.
• I personally really like that there are more manuals in Germany.

DINING

• We were a little weirded out that it is common to share tables in busy restaurants.
• The drinking age is lower and they serve beer in McDonalds.

OTHER

• Church-sanctioned marriage is not legal in the eyes of the State ni Germany.
• Prostitution is tolerated in Germany, which was surprising.
• Americans address by first name when first introduced, often.
• No Gay marriage in Germany yet.
• When asked what their name is, Germans will usually respond with their last name.
• Germans rarely eat with their hands.
• Germans keep hands on table, but also no elbows.
• Germans don't drink tap water, which is strange.
• There will be an attendant (usually female) in public restrooms who expect tips for keeping the bathroom clean. This is rare in America.
• Bathrooms in general are just weird in Germany
• Americans don't like watching dubbed or subtitled movies.
• Germans are rarely religious
• Despite this, most German holidays are religious and there is no separation of church and state
• Shopping is a lot less of a fun thing to do in Germany.

We'd really like to go to Germany because we'd see dogs everywhere, even in restaurants. The autobahn would be cool to visit, and the beer and wine is supposedly better, regardless of how good the US beer has gotten. However, Americans seem to be more friendly and less blunt and straightforward, which is a good and a bad thing at the same time.

Completed with Kayley P.

Mein Weg Nach Deutschland Response (11/16)

1. The German Workplace
• In terms of what life is like in the German workplace once you get a job, it's very similar to how it is in America. You eventually talk to your coworkers in a much less formal sense, while still talking to your boss almost exclusively in a more formal way. The only difference that I saw was that the time you have to notify your boss is three months instead of two weeks. I also remember hearing that you get more paid vacation in Germany (and Europe in general), but that wasn't mentioned on this page.
2. Marriage
• Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about marriage in Germany, but this also seems to be very similar to how marriage is done in the US. The page seems to place a lot more importance on getting the marriage officially and getting the paperwork, though. It seems that the German culture is less of a religious-minded culture than the US is.
3. Leisure
• Leisure time seems to be a bit more different than how it is in the United States. They have Adult Education Centers, which seem to be cheaper and more varied than US alternatives. They also have to register their TV and Radio. TV seems to be more like how the US treats Cable or Satellite TV, but having to pay a prescription fee for regular radio just seems so weird to me. I wouldn't pay anything for radio here. 
4. Civil Rights and Public Life
• Civil rights and public life, at least on paper, are exactly the same in the US and Germany. However, I know that there still is a lot of embedded racism and inequality that seem to have been embedded into our daily lives and seem next to impossible to change, regardless of how much we try. We still are fighting a very real fight against discrimination, and at least from what I read on Gastarbeiten, Germany may still be facing some similar problems as well.
5. Housing
• Again, the US and Germany are pretty similar here, but there still are a couple differences that I've noticed. One, that you have to pay for things left by previous tenants, like a fridge. I would hope it's cheaper than buying a fridge on your own, but that just seem strange to me. Another thing I noticed is that many housing places instill a form of quiet hours. I've only seen that in dorm life, and not in the real world. I'd be all for making quiet hours more common. I hate noisy neighbors.

I chose this article because I am interested in how Germany is reacting to the events that occurred this past weekend in Paris. I was saddened but not surprised to see that the Islamic faith has taken a massive hit, and how the actions of a tiny group have affected the reputation of so many. However, it is i a relief to see that people like Hamideh Mohaghegi are peacefully calling for the world to still treat the greater, more peaceful people who share this faith with love and compassion.

11/11: German and Europe

I really liked the first article I read, because it provided two very well-polished arguments. I agree with the argument that German products are not being forced to be bought. While there is a distinct problem with German products getting bought constantly, I don't think that Germany should be forced to change anything with how they make and distribute their products. Apple seems to dominate the smartphone market, but no one is forced to buy an iPhone, so would it make sense if Apple stopped making products? If Germany is the same way with automobiles, appliances, and more, we should follow the same principle.

I do agree with the angle of the second article. Whether the German people like it or not, they have a lot more responsibility to the EU than they either think or feel they should have, and big changes need to happen with Germany and its infrastructure. 

11/11: Fictional Bio

On February 16, 1929, Anja Kraus was born to parents Ernst and Emma Kraus in southern Berlin. Her family was neither particularly rich or poor, but they survived pleasantly. As the Nazi Party rose to power and eventually started to threaten the world around them, the family did nothing out of fear. Ernst managed to avoid conscription into the Wehrmacht, but in 1943, he could no longer and was sent out to the Western Theatre, where he was killed by advancing Allied forces in late 1944. Anja and her mother managed to survive the war and bombings of Berlin, but once the war ended, both were asked to join the Trümmerfrauen. While both were not exactly eager to join, the Trümmerfrauen got the one of the highest-valued ration cards, and as there was no one at home anymore who could provide work, the two decided to join up with them.

Anja specifically worked in organizing the materials gathered by other Trümmerfrauen, separating piles of bricks and other building materials. It was rough work, but she was glad she didn't have to actually get the materials, which was her mother's duty. She worked to help rebuild the Southern parts of Germany for about nine years. During that time, the restrictions on women labor workers were lifted throughout Germany, allowing her to continue her work in the streets and even getting her more rights as a worker once she finally finished around age 25.

When she had finished, Anja was glad for the break, and while she never truly enjoyed her hard work in the rubble, and she was a little resentful that she lost the first half of her 20s for rebuilding, she still had a small sense of pride in knowing that what she did was for a great cause and that thanks to her and her fellow Trümmerfrauen, she would be able to secure a better job.

11/9 In-Class Work: Reunification

I chose to read the second link provided, the one about the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall.

• Here are five facts I learned from this article.
• In East Germany, citizens were promised a vote on a new, socialist constitution, but would not get a chance to vote in 40 years.
• Their focus on economic output was on steel and other heavy and chemical industries
• Ulbricht, the leader of the DDR at this time claimed that he had no intention of building a wall, when in actuality, they had, and would start in two weeks.
• Ulbricht was forced to "retire" because of "old age."
• The situation in traveling to East Germany is similar to the situation of traveling to West Germany.
• This article for sure puts a positive light on reunification. It described a lot of horrors that Easterners had to face, especially going into the reasoning behind the wall, description of some Stasi activities, and especially the before/after pictures in the bottom of the article.
• There is still a cultural divide between East and West, mostly in that there is still much less productivity in the East, a general mentality that "West is Best," or more accurately, Besserwessi. Then there is the term Ostalgie, which refers to a nostalgic feeling for life in East Germany. I can sort of see how one would look back fondly on those times. As bad as it was back then, it was still the way many people grew up and learned to live. The sudden change to life similar to how it was in the West would have been very jarring and difficult, especially for the people who had spent 20+ years in the DDR. A desire for things to be familiar again can easily be as strong as wishing you had the things you had as a child or other types of nostalgia.

10/28 Questions

• During WWII, it certainly would be rough to have been a German in the United States. I don't think it was equal to the animosity felt towards Japanese Americans, however. Germans were not sent to special concentration camps like the Japanese Americans, however, there was still a fair amount of paranoia against them during WWII. Part of this is possibly because there are so many people of Germanic descent in the United States, and possibly even the fact that Germans were white and it was easier for them to blend into the crowd and not be seen and consequently harassed.
• I don't know if "surprise" is the best word, but it was the first time that I've actually read accounts of mistreatment and harshness towards German people at all. So in a sense, I was surprised when I read that it happened, but the surprise really didn't last.
• I feel that Borchert's stories showed that post-war Germany was quiet. The story that really stuck with me was the first one, with the singing soldier. The sheer loneliness after so much of the population was killed or captured, mixed with the sudden quiet that came after the loud explosions and bombings near the end of the war would have made for a really gruesome sight. I also really liked The Kitchen Clock. The sense that time suddenly stopped and everything was quiet and surreal must have been what it felt like once the fighting suddenly ceased.
• I think they give quite a bit of insight into the lives and attitudes of the German citizens after the war. I'd certainly put it on-par with Maus in terms of insight on its respective time period because it really got into the minds of the people who lived there, as opposed to just drilling facts and information into the reader's head.
• As I said, I really liked the first story, Lots and Lots of Snow. The setting of it (the snow-covered ground) as well as its time setting (still relatively new in the year) made for a sense of a fresh start, and the fact that the snow covered the land is symbolic of how the Germans still had to live with what happened to them and what happened because of them underneath. I was also really impressed with the sergeant's reaction to his singing. Christmas is almost universally a time of piece in the Western world, and to finally hear peace after the occasional ringing gunshot brought him to laughter. He was happy the violence was over.

10/26 Questions

• Vladek performed many odd jobs, such as a tinsmith and a shoemaker. He also participates in the mass lineups, as shown on page 32 and 58 of Maus II, where the guards line the Jews up to see who they keep and who they kill. As bad as it was, it wouldn't compare to Dachau. After being forced to march there, the Jews were crammed into what little space was left at Dachau, where disease spread so much more quickly, as evidenced by pages 94-97,when Vladek gets Typhus. Dachau was also a "death camp," as opposed to Auschwitz being a "Work Camp." They were sent there to die, not to work.
• It seems very similar in the overall scope of most survivor's stories that I've heard. The Jews were mistreated, then attacked, then forced into hiding, and then forced into the concentration camps, where they encountered nearly unspeakable horrors. But this is a story of a Jew who never seemed to truly resign and accept his fate. I was constantly in awe of Vladek and his resourcefulness. Also, the way the story is told is very unique, because of two reasons: It is a graphic novel, a medium made to show more than tell, and the choice to make each race of people a different animal.
• To think of the Jews as mice is a pretty good metaphor in terms of storytelling, even more so than having the Nazis being portrayed as cats. Mice are considered vermin, as well as being small and unimportant. People put mousetraps up in their house all the time. We see them as pests and much less than our dogs and cats, which are also mammals and not quite so different. If this is how Jews were more or less always perceived, and one thinks of the death camps as mouse traps, it makes the holocaust seem almost inevitable.
• I don't really consider books and other works about the Holocaust to be in the same boat as World War II, mostly because so much of the rest of the war is portrayed as a glorious, exciting thing, even now in modern media such as movies or video games. The Holocaust is and always has been seen as the polar opposite of this and is rarely connected to the war, with the exception of soldiers liberating the camps. Even in a lot of famous World War II movies rarely portray anything involving the Holocaust, while Holocaust works rarely mention what's going on outside of the camps. So no. I don't consider these books to really be about World War II. The events happened in the same time and place, but the two events rarely came together.
  As to whether the books were fiction, I don't think so. I read a book in the Good Books class a couple years ago called The Things They Carried, also about the horrors experienced in a warzone. The horrors and the terrors and the feelings were real, even if the stories are fabricated or some actual events changed with memory. It doesn't seem fictitious to me.

10/19 Questions

• One of the reasons Vladek is so concerned with money is because he had to use everything he had to even survive in late 30s and early to mid 40s in Nazi Germany. I'm not sure from just Maus I why he had to fix the roof or why he distrusts Mala so much, but he may dislike her mostly because Anja and he had been through so much together and Mala, while she was also a survivor, did not go through that same experience as him. He possibly insists on doing things himself because he always has had to do things on his own. He developed a philosophy of self-reliance because of him having to go through the Holocaust.
• Mice are usually hunted by cats, so drawing the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats is pretty self-explanatory as a metaphor. The reason he chose the non-Jewish Poles to be portrayed as pigs was possibly because the Polish people in the story do a lot of "squealing" on the German Jews, usually to save their own skins. Pigs are pretty resourceful animals, as well, so the Poles doing what they can to survive in German-occupied Poland would naturally be drawn as pigs. I think it's a very effective metaphor that simplifies a lot of the complex political things that were happening at the time and lets the reader focus more on the storytelling as a whole.
• He calls his father a murderer because he destroyed all that was left of Anja after she died. It was so important for Art to find out about Auschwitz because he was telling the story, and his father destroying the books was sort of murdering Anja and who she was after the holocaust ended.
• I think that this book is a really effective way of teaching the material. It's easier to absorb the information in pictures as opposed to trying to make a picture with words. Sometimes it can even be more harrowing.

Completed with Brandon S., Kayley P.,  and Casey J.

10/14 Classwork: Propaganda and Weimar Republic PDF

These two posters are taken from the late 1920s. Earlier Nazi propaganda favored a muscular fist causing violence, similar to the violence the Nazi party caused in the streets. Both of these describe putting an end to Communism (and also capitalism in Tod der Lüge).

I chose these two from the first year of Hitler's Third Reich. All of these posters showed scenes of Germans returning home to their country, or even their country's former glory, with Hitler leading the way, sometimes even dressed as Joan of Arc (somewhat ironically a great French Hero).

Currently my PDF of the Weimar republic will not load, so I will update this later in the weekend.

10/14 Questions

• I feel like I understand a lot more about how Nazi Germany began its rise. With many factions and political parties fighting for supremacy, it's only natural that one or two would gain power, especially as aggressive as the Nazi Party was. As for how Hitler managed to use the system for his own will and personal gains, it's something that happens often-one look at a list of jokes about lawyers and you'll understand why.
• I think the biggest immediate parallel that I can think of is the issue regarding school shootings and gun control in America. While there still is a big debate on this issue constantly raging, it only seems to be brought to light when a school shooting occurs, and even then, our attention as a nation is quickly brought to something else because we're almost desensitized to these occurances. While it may not be a perfect parallel, these racist slogans slowly must have become white noise to the German people.
  
  Another immediate parallel is the American treatment of LGBTQ people, although the attitudes towards this community is slowly starting to change in their favor. It wasn't very long ago that people commonly used words like "Gay" or "faggot" in a derogatory form and it was, while somewhat offensive, still mostly accepted by society. However, now that we've seen the horrors of such racism and have such an extensive record of this, political groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church do not have nearly the effect as the Nazi party in the 1930s.
• I think that a lot of people chose to ignore it for multiple reasons. One was the reason that I mentioned above when I was talking about gun control. Another could have been their desire to see Germany viewed as the power it once was. A third reason was because they were just so desperate for something good to happen to them that when things started turning around economically once the NSDAP gained their power, they were so relieved and considered the ends outweighed by the means.

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The following is the list of events and people mentioned in the questions, as well as a brief description of how it fit into the Weimar Republic. Completed with Dalton Stemberg.

• Black Friday
• Black Friday is the German equivalent to Black Tuesday, the day when the New York Stock Exchange crashed. It occurred on Friday 13, 1927,  and it once again plunged Germany into a deep depression.
• Paul Hindenberg
• Paul von Hindenburg is the man who named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany in 1933.
• Enabling Laws
• These laws were passed by Nazi Germany which made it legal to discriminate, and eventually, cause violence to the Jews living in the country.
• Unemployment
• Much like the rest of the world, Germany had a large portion of its working class unemployed at the height of the Great Depression. At its peak in 1932, Germany had over six million of its population unemployed.
• 1936 Olympic Games
• These Olympics were hosted in Berlin, and they provided a much-needed credibility boost to the Nazi party due to its massive amount of victory in events, and its organization.
• Autobahn
• This was the German equivalent to the modern US Highway. These projects were started under Hitler's reign as an effort to give more jobs to the German people.
• Nuremberg Laws
• These laws, basically the Enabling Laws, are laws put in place that severely limited Jewish rights in Germany.
• Kristallnacht
• Night of November 9/10, 1938. Nazis destroyed/set fire to a huge amount of Jewish establishments and shops.
• Brown Shirts
• The people who committed the crimes on Kristallnacht. Members of the Nazi party. More specifically, these people made up Hitler's Nazi militia that caused a lot of violence between them and the Communist party in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
• Mein Kampf
• Book written by Hitler when he was imprisoned in the 1920s. Literally translates to "My Struggle." Basically his manifesto.
• Mass Exodus
• Massive amount of emigration from Germany in the mid-30s. 
• Concentration Camps
• Camps built under Hitler's reign, soon to be known for housing, and eventually killing Jews during the Holocaust.
• Anschluss
• Joining between Germany and Austria in 1938.

10/14 Questions/Homework

• An eduction system built under a monarchial rule probably led children to learn that authority is always in the right and can never be wrong. It may not have allowed them to learn to think for themselves.
• In the photograph, I see two children playing and making a house out of stacks of German Marks.
• It's interesting seeing a society where their own money was useless. To even think that something would be marked up multiple million marks just from the time it took to enter the store and get something is something you'd expect to find in fiction, yet, while this may be a bit hyperbolic of a statement, it was almost a reality.
• In Metropolis, I see a triptych that depicts the cultural life of 1920s Germany. It's very pixilated and hard to make out, but for sure the middle picture depicts some sort of dance hall. A man plays a saxophone (probably Jazz, noting the time period) and multiple couples dance happily. I would guess that the scene on the left is of a poor group of people on the streets and the scene on the right is one showing a lavish lifestyle Germany was not really living.
• It suggests that while culturally rich, monetarily, Germany was very very poor.
• In the "Fatherland" cartoon, it seemed to represent the German family as one that looks forward, explores, and is civilized, while it seems to portray the Jewish businessmen as greedy and dirty.
• In the following picture, if not provided context, I would have assumed it was a picture taken during our own Great Depression. It even seems to be taken at about the same time. I feel that, at least in the early 1930s, living in Germany was also an experience shared by a good amount of the entire world.
• 
  

10/12 Questions

• I chose to watch Metropolis because it was the one film out of the three that I had heard of, and had been meaning to watch the movie as it was. I felt I could kill two birds with one stone.
• The film begins in the upper class area of the titular city. Freder, the son of the ruler of the city, is minding his own business when he spots a woman who is showing Children of the lower class how his class lives. He is instantly smitten and wants to find her. He follows her down to the workers' area of Metropolis and sees one of the giant machines explode.
  When Freder tells his father about the explosion, and Grot, the head of the workers finds a bunch of plans in the pockets of dead workers, his father fires Josaphat, his right-hand man. Seeing this, Freder runs off. His father gets suspicious and sends a character named "The Thin Man' to follow him.
  Freder's father then finds a man named Rotwang to help him decode plans and finds out about a robot that Rotwang had been building to resurrect Hel, the woman he used to love. Meanwhile, Freder finds the woman again, and learns she is a prophet of sorts named Maria, who preaches that one day someone will come who can help the poor class communicate their problems to the rich class. Freder knows that it is him. Rotwang and Freder's father eavesdrop and then decide to make the robot's likeness into that of Maria's so that Freder's father can destroy the potentially budding rebellion. That robot then goes to convince all of the people to rise up, which will eventually lead to their demise.
  The workers rush to destroy the machines where they had been working, leaving behind their children. When the machines are destroyed, much at the dismay of Grot, their living quarters are slowly flooded, endangering the lives of the children. Fortunately, Freder and Maria manage to save the children and once everything is fixed, Freder becomes the man who can help both classes get along, stating that the mediator between head and hands must be the heart.
• This film is incredible. From design, story, and some special effects, you can see how it has influenced genres of movie and literature. A lot of the plot points and story elements in this movie are also in so many other dystopian works of film and literature. The highly stylized machines clearly inspired the Star Wars franchise (notably C-3PO and the planet Coruscant, which is a planet that is one giant city, a Metropolis of its own right), as well as many other futuristic, steampunk, and expressionist movies seen for the nearly 90 years since its initial release. You can clearly see its effect in countless movies and books that pay homage to it, much more than just the ones I mentioned.
• I think that this is a reflection on the Weimar republic in the sense that the governing class and the working class really were as separated from each other as in that movie. It was more or less begging for its own "heart" to come between the "hands" of the working class and the "Head" that was the government of the Weimar republic.
• While looking into the "Notes on Metropolis" reading, I read that the film may have helped Hitler out, as he probably saw himself getting the power he wanted by putting himself in Freder's role. I thought that that made a lot of sense, and that people could be easily convinced that he was the "heart."

Response Essay: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

I love film. One of my favorite things to do is just sit and talk about movies that I like or that I have seen. I feel like a have a unique vantage point in comparison to other people my age, as I tend to look at the artistic setup of the shot. That being said, I still have yet to see a lot of silent films, and I have never seen a German Expressionist film, or any film that is similar to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Watching this movie was really interesting, to say the least. On one hand, some of the visuals were really striking, but on the other hand, the format of a silent movie is not one that has necessarily aged well. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is no exception. Perhaps it’s just because I’m used to the newer, fast-paced, crisper sounds and visuals, but the first few minutes were a little hard to get into. But once the movie hit the ten-minute mark, the slightly-off visuals, distorted sound, and eerie faster-paced movements actually made the film seem creepier, possibly more creepy than originally intended.

As for the visuals in the film, my first thoughts were that the movie took place in a black-and-white version of Whoville. I really liked the visuals though. The jagged lines of the set, as well as the crazy offset between black and white really added to the surreal feel of the movie, especially considering that it all takes place in the head of Francis really tie in well together with the tone the movie is going for.

One of the biggest parallels that critics draw with this movie is how it treats figures of authority and power, and how the film is a commentary to how the militaristic ideals of WWI-era German leaders were such a toxic influence on the German people. It also shows effect of Germany’s thoughts towards authority: not just that it was bad, but also that it was malevolent, and considering how Dr. Caligari “wins” in the end, possibly even suggests that the force of the government was all-too powerful, even unstoppable.

In regards to most other aspects of the movie, I really don’t have too much to compare the film too. As I stated before, I really don’t have a whole lot of experience with movies from the silent era, so while I think that this is a great example of a movie from its time, most of that comes from reading about how highly it was and still is praised as such a wonderful movie. The music, while good, was not as particularly memorable as the music in, say, Star Wars. It was simple, yet effective. The cinematography was pretty subpar, but film at this time was still a very new medium, and a lot of things we take for granted in a film today were not even thought of at this time.

Overall, I did really enjoy the film. It was a fun story, sort of spooky, and while very dated, I can still see the educational value of this film, both in terms of studying film and studying German history. I do see it having more use in film studying, as a lot of fun techniques used in film today are definitely in use here, and history classes rarely spend a lot of time deconstructing art, literature, or film. Either way, it was a worthwhile watch, and while I don’t feel like it taught me anything particularly about the time or even expressionism, it got me curious enough to check out expressionism more as a whole anyway, so it gets another check in the “win” column for me.

Reflection Essay: How German is American?

One of the main reasons I originally took this class was because I was interested in German culture. Aside from some traditional German foods, I really didn’t know a whole lot about the German culture. I never really had a chance to experience any distinctly “German” events or celebrations, and I never really had even heard of any big ones, save for Oktoberfest. Because of this, I was quite eager to delve into the “How German is American” text. It was surprising that German traditions would also be American Traditions.

One of the biggest surprises came rather early in the text when I read about the German fascination with Native American culture. German settlers were not the first in the Midwest, but they still managed to make and maintain contact with the Native American populations. The pamphlet provided only glosses over David Zeisberger’s writings, but what really struck me as interesting were the amount of fictionalized depictions of Native Americans during the late nineteenth century, most notably Karl May and his works.

Just this statement alone made me think of some parallels that the American people went through, specifically the romanticized Western dramas and films of the mid-20^th century. The Native peoples must have seemed almost surreal to the Germans over in Germany. Interestingly enough, Karl May’s “Cowboys and Indians” books were actually from the Native American viewpoint. I wonder if the way Americans had historically treated Native Americans and the way the people in Germany had no say in the culture of the Native Americans had anything to do with their depictions of them.

Another big surprise I had was the impact of the Turners association on the American School system. To find out that the first Physical Education teacher and superintendent of Physical Education was a member of this association was a really exciting thing. In fact, seeing that a lot of German immigrants had a hand in shaping much more progressive thoughts such as women’s suffrage and anti-slavery was really cool. To think that the German mindset helped influence and shape the American mindset not only in the mid-1800s, but also today, fills me with a lot of pride as someone with German heritage.

That being said, I would say the most interesting and surprising thing I’ve heard about how German heritage was being held by the Old Order Amish, which is almost the exact opposite of the mentality shown by the Turners and the Freethinkers. I’m not sure why exactly I was so surprised that the Amish were of German descent; to be fair, the only thing I knew about the Amish before this reading were that they didn’t use technology. To think that this specific group of people came from the same part of Europe as the Turners and Freethinkers is almost mind-boggling, and I think that Germany’s diversity in terms of its American immigrants matches perfectly with the “melting pot” that America as a whole strives to be.

Overall, I found this reading to be very informative and it sparked a lot of questions and desires to learn more as I read it. I managed to find more reason to be proud of my German heritage as well, aside from just wanting to eat a little more sauerkraut. To think my ancestors played such a prominent role in the shaping of the country I live in today is really exciting, and I’m eager to find out about more ways they have shaped this nation.

World War I Notes

• I really liked the "If World War One Was a Bar Fight" text, and I actually found it pretty useful. Putting the entirety of a world war into something simple we can understand helps us understand the motives behind some of the chain of events, even if they are overly-simplified and not entirely accurate. It's also humorous, which makes it easier to read and relate to.
• I learned that WWI was almost effectively a clash of egos and pride rather than actual conflict. The initial conflict would have possibly led to a war, but due to the system of alliances that had been established in WWI, so many extra players joined in.
• There were ultimately two groups involved in WWI: The Allies and the Central Powers. The Allies were Britain, France, Russia, and some smaller countries. The Central Powers were mostly Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and some smaller countries.
• While the text is funny and informative, it still has its problems. A few events are misinterpreted, and as I said previously, it was very simplified.
• A lot of smaller events that led to the war's beginning that raised tension throughout Europe are completely glossed over, and instead the bar fight starts with one event. It also does not completely discuss the motives for some of the actions, which partially adds to the humorous nature of the reading.
• The assassination of Franz Ferdinand may have been the spark that started the war, but there were many other things that could have potentially been a cause of the fighting. I personally view the cause as all of the complicated alliances, alongside with a shared desire for their countries to expand and flourish, and having no place left to do so.

9/30 Questions

• The most immediate aspect of the film that would be considered expressionistic would be the set that the film was filmed on. It is very non-realistic, with a lot of sharp angles that would not be seen in regular architecture. It also is used to create an emotion, or to use a better word, an expression. The emotion of this movie is a lot more of a focus than the realism. Another aspect would be the plot itself. It's not very straightforward or even all that based in reality (until the end, possibly), nor is it told in a linear fashion.
• The police, bureaucrats and office workers were not depicted very kindly in the movie. They looked outlandish, surreal, and violent - almost evil in a sense.
• Francis' room seems almost normal in comparison to the rest of the sets featured in the film. A lot of the surreal visuals are not present during the scenes shot in that room. It also seemed like there were more shadows in it. In contrast, Dr. Caligari's office was much brighter, and was a lot more surreally shaped.
• The town was all kinds of crazy. I really liked the set design - it sort of reminded me of a Tim Burton movie. I wonder if Burton was inspired by a lot of Expressionism? I wouldn't be surprised. It was dark, spooky, yet beautiful in its own ways.
• In a very literal sense, as this all potentially took place in the mind of Francis, so psychology and how Francis' (and possibly other members of the cast) mind works is probably the focal point of a lot of discussion revolving around this film.
• As I mentioned in the previous answer, the twist ending is that Francis is in the asylum as a patient, along with the people he is telling his story to. I think the ending was awesome, and the way it left me with a bunch of questions was really cool. I like movies that leave a little bit open to interpretation, and I like how this movie ended just as bizarrely as it ran.
• This movie was released in 1920, right after World War I. A lot of the bureaucrats were painted in a bad light because the writers and director of the film were probably providing a reaction to Germany's treatment by its military during World War I.

9/28 Questions

• Kafkaesque, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is an adjective that describes something as of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; especially :  having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality.
• Last night, I had a dream that was very Kafkaesque, not only because I had no idea what was going on and nothing made sense, but mostly because I turned into a large beetle.
• It was very Kafkaesque in the sense that I didn't really see the point in the story. It didn't tell me much about the time period, it didn't really give much insight into the main character or even the supporting case, and it didn't really seem complex as much as it seemed...boring. Once the Stoker brought Karl into the room with all the people, things did start getting out of hand, but by then I just wasn't involved with the story and I couldn't find a reason to care. I don't know if it was Kafka's writing itself, or maybe that it was a bad translation, but none of it interested me.
• I've read Kafka before; in high school, we were assigned The Metamorphosis. And I hated it. Mostly, I'm not a fan of his work because I'm not really a fan of expressionist works in general, but in particular, his work just seems needlessly strange and disconnected from reality. He seems to be one of the most critically acclaimed authors of the early 20th century, and while I can respect and understand that, it just really isn't my cup of tea.
  
  Kafka is also known for a story called The Trial, which was published, like much of Kafka's work, posthumously. It is the story of a man who is arrested for a reason he nor the reader ever learns. I don't know much about the story.
• The largest event that happened during Kafka's lifetime was World War I, and I feel that a lot of Kafka's work is influenced heavily by the horrors of this war. A lot of themes he wrote on were isolation and disconnect from family, which were common themes at these times.

9/23 Questions

• The Ringstraße is a street in Vienna which served as a sort of cultural and artistic center for the city, and today has a very strong connection to the Secession.
• The Secession was a movement in art that broke away from the traditional art school so they could practice new ideas in art. Their motto is , to paraphrase, that each era has its own style. The building, also titled the Secession, opened in 1899, the same year of Johann Strauß's death.
• Klimt was respected by much of the bourgeois. Many women of that class considered it to be a sign of their status to be painted by him.
• Gustav Mahler was the director of the Viennese Opera during its Golden Period.
• There were around 700 coffee shops in 1904. They provided and continue to provide meeting places for the citizens.
• At this time, the Jews were starting to really experience anti-semitism. It was nowhere near the extreme it would be by World War II, but it was still prevalent enough to make life harder for those of Jewish descent.
• Knowing that most of Freud's work has been more or less debunked by modern psychology made me read through his interpretations with great caution. However, a lot of it made sense. He put a lot of real-life context into many elements of a dream, such as where he was living at the time and who he was associating with. Many people do have dreams like this, so it makes sense.
• I find the analysis pretty grounded in reality, as opposed to a sort of representational and/or abstract thing that many people try to use to interpret dreams these days (For example, according to dreamstop.com, dreaming of the sun could potentially mean blessings). I kind of like that, but at the same time, I felt like there was much less focus on analyzing the dreams themselves.
• I do feel that this text is important because keeping a scientific record keeps us moving forward, and it is still a pretty interesting theory to consider when trying to explain our own dreams.
• I honestly cannot remember most to all of my dreams, so unfortunately, I cannot analyze a recent one using Freud's methods. I'll have to write down a dream the next time I wake up. And even when I do, rarely do I remember these dreams in such detail.

9/14 Questions

• The relation to the Reformation and the Thirty Years War was that the reformation started the unease that led to the war. When anti-remormers began to take power in 1618, the Thirty Years War began.
• Individuals like Martin Luther helped lead the way to the Enlightenment because they waere brave enough to question the church, the people who held the most authority and power in the entire Holy Roman Empire, committing acts never really seen before. It sort of started a "monkey see monkey do" attitude, which led to people learning for themselves and trying to make themselves better and smarter.
• Kant explains enlightenment as "man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity" in the very first sentence he writes. He then continues to describe enlightenment as, in much simpler terms, to use the brain you have and the knowledge you've gained.
• Personally, I think he means that he lived in an age where we were presented with the choice to be enlightened men and women.  Kant seemed to believe that people willingly remained ignorant or blissfully unaware of their own immaturity. He states that Mankind has not yet reached the stage where enlightenment can be reached without outside help - so basically he thinks we have to force people to do their own thing.
• He thinks tolerance is arrogant, and that one person does not have complete say on what is right and what is wrong.
• The parable of the ring reflects a lot of the enlightenment because it presented characters who were thinking on their own and debating rather than just doing what they were told.
• The crusades were happening, so it was only natural to have the Ring parable set there.
• Each of the rings represents one of the three big monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It takes place in Jerusalem because Jerusalem is a massively important city and sort of the center of all three of those monotheistic religions. 

8/31 Questions

• The Hildebrandslied was written between 825 and 850 AD.
• It was written in Bavarian, but there are many indications of other languages present in the text, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what the language it was written in was.
• It seems to be an old warrior about to do battle with his son? The language was confusing to me, even in the translation, but it seemed that they were exchanging words before a fight.
• Poor Henry got leprosy and to cure it, he traveled a lot. He found a place in Italy where he found he needed to sacrifice a virgin to be cured. Not finding a virgin, he decided to sell all of his things and live with freemen. He met a girl and fell in love with her, and she agrees to be sacrificed for him. He changes his mind at the last second and they return home to get married.
• It was a nice story, and it reminded me of a bible parable.
• 
  

8/26 Questions

• Germanic tribes came from the middle parts to the upper parts of Europe and headed south towards the Roman Empire, around where the modern-day countries of Germany and Poland lie.
• I learned that Germania was relatively simply structured, and didn't have a very strong central government. However, I noticed that The Short Pictoral History reading depicted the Germanic tribes as much more peaceful, and Tacitus described them as much more violent. I'm not sure if this is because they focused on different communities or if they put in a lot of their own opinions towards the Germanic peoples.
• Tacitus seems to have a really negative view towards the Germanic people. They described them almost entirely as a people who only made time for war, and when they were not at war, they lounged around and did nothing.
• Limes were giant walls that separated the conquered people from the people still in lands under Germanic control.
• The Thing was an annual event that the Germanic people gathered at every year, according to The Short Pictoral History reading. Here a lot of state issues were discussed, sort of like a Congress or a Parliament.
• Arminus was nicknamed "Hermann the German," and he led the Germanic people around the time that they became known as Germans.
• The last picture will not fully load on my computer as anything more than very large pixels, so I'm not able to answer that question at this time.

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