Half Dreaming on the American Dream

The american dream is that, if you work hard, you can make it. You can go to a good college, get a good job, marry someone, get an upper-middle class house, and have your kids go to a nice school.

My definition of wealth is money and assets and income. Officially wealth is assets, which includes money, minus debts, but I feel like income is important in the idea because income adds the idea of continual growth; the idea that you will continue to be wealthy, and you feel safe and content. I feel like debts is important, but only when you’re worried you won’t be able to pay it back. Like, if you have a mansion and 3 Maybachs, but it’s all on debt and you know you can’t keep it, and you know that you’re screwed because you’ll have to pay interest too, it’s not wealth because the objects aren’t yours and you are totally screwed. However, if you have a house and you’re ¾ in debt on it, but you know you’re going to finish the mortgage in due time (i’m 60% sure that’s the wrong terminology), then I think it might feel like you already own the house, and it counts as wealth. I think over all, wealth is plenty and security. It’s the idea that you can get whatever you really want, and the knowledge that this state of affairs will continue indefinitely.

WARNING: LIBERAL BIAS AHEAD, and seriously, it's pretty bad

We have the liberal viewpoint that many people are made poor because they were born poor and weren’t given the opportunities that rich people were, and that most wealthy people are still wealthy because they were able to utilize their privilege. We can see this perspective when Nick’s father says that “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had” (Fitzgerald 1)

The conservative viewpoint is that people who are wealthy earned their money and poor people are poor because they are either stupid or didn’t work hard. In the Great Gatsby, I lean towards the stupid and lazy. More stupid because Mr. Wilson is described as not being too bright (Fitzgerald 26). Well, Prager U says that it’s not that they’re poor or don’t work hard, but that the welfare state is encouraging people not to work or live in poverty.

Compared to East Egg’s scorn for new money, the US now is a lot more about self made people. Well, I don’t think it’s about coming from poverty into wealth. Like with that Republican Senator’s response to the state of the union. She “was raised to live simply” but she worked and worked to become Senator. She also gives some ideas about the American dream be talking about how it’s failed. Ernst said “Many families feel like they’re working harder and harder, with less and less to show for it.” This is the opposite of the American Dream; to work and not get anything. The American Dream is to work and get results, the results being cash, cash, money.

Yeah, I subscribe mostly to the liberal viewpoint, that most poor people aren’t given the opportunity to become wealthy and rich people are able to use their wealth to gain further wealth. Most of this comes from my parents and the fact that I am really well off. My parents have enough money that they were able to pay for someone to help me look at colleges and get scholarships, and because of that, I applied to schools that gave a lot of merit aid and now every time I talk with Ms. Hicks I get to tell her about money colleges are throwing at me. A lot of this was work, yes, but a lot of it was also privileged. The assumption that I would go to college also does wonders. Like, I’m going to college, there was no question, and because of that, I’m going to college (as long as they don’t kick me out because of the grades I’m getting this quarter, Mrs. G plz save me) and getting an education, which will help me later. There’s also the issue about how, because of rich kids expecting scholarships for academic performance, colleges have to compete with each other and bribe these privileged kids to go to their school, instead of using the money for need-blind admissions, to make sure that all qualified students are accepted and they can all pay for it. Seriously, if my Dad wanted to save $160,000 so that I could go to a need blind institution where we would pay around $40,000 a year, he probably could have. But he didn’t want to, so I played the school scholarship game and am applying and visiting schools like Whitman College, 1% African American, worst of elite colleges for Income Diversity because they use their money to get people like me to their college. Privilege and wealth is bullcrap. Anyway, that that rant is over, Vote Bernie Sanders for president.

JK. I didn’t talk about poverty at all. Much of my attitude toward poverty comes from the vlogbrothers, and especially John Green’s particular attempt to decrease world suck. And it’s very nice to see the progress the world has made.

Can't find in decoding

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

• “found” - rather underwhelming for a gigantic insect
• “transformed” - is a bit magical, and I imagine the process taking somewhere between 5 seconds and 5 minutes
• “Gigantic insect” - Insect is pretty technical word. Gigantic is a fun word, It could be a word Dr. Seuss made
• Syntax: “one morning” is placed between “awoke… from” - I feel this is a bit awkward. The same is true for “in his bed” between “transformed...into”
• Imagery/details: The “gigantic insect in a bed” is little funny and ridiculous
• Structure: “As [he did this], he found [this]” - This implies the actions are simultaneous, somewhat causal
• Other: Uneasy dreams foreshadows the transformation

Gregor Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.

• diction: “woke” - abrupt
• “changed” - basic word, which provides less expectation for something weird, has a “it just kind of happened attitude”
• “giant bug” - simple words, like more of a kid’s story
• Syntax: “one morning” is placed after “from uneasy dreams”
• Drops “in bed” - which I totally agree with, “in bed” is awkward to fit in
• Imagery/details: Bug is more ambiguous, be I envision more of a giant cockroach or beetle, instead of some three pieced insect
• Structure: With the drop of “in bed” makes the structure more streamlined, and one morning doesn’t interrupt “woke from...”

When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.

• Diction: “troubled” - “double, double, toil and trouble” got that magic going on. Troubled to me means less of lightly tossing and turning and awkward grunts, like with uneasy, but more of a waking up and then considering the dream “low key problematic”. I think troubled dreams makes it sound like it was built on subconscious issues that were already there. While uneasy dreams cause discomfort to most.
• “transformed” again
• “enormous” - I would put it somewhere between
• Structure: “When this happened, that happened”
• Syntax: “he found he had been” implies that there was someone that did this to him.
• Imagery/details: Honestly, for me, there’s not much special about the imagery here.

One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

• Diction: “Agitated” - negative, pretty active word, like he is physically moving in his bed
• “Monstrous vermin” - very negative connotations.
• Monstrous’ root is the noun “Monster”
• Syntax: “One morning,” at beginning. more narrative like “once upon a time”
• Gregor Samsa is placed much later in the sentence
• Structure: Many commas, a long and complicated sentence, but at the same time, a bit more sensical without run ons like Gregor Samsa awoke One Morning from uneasy dreams. One Morning was very thankful.
• Imagery - “Monstrous vermin”, something grotesque
• Other: The severity of “agitated dreams” matches the intense imagery of the insect
• Alliteration: “awakening from agitated”

Original: Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

After analyzing each, respond to the following questions in a well-developed (2-3 paragraphs) response- think about the translations as a whole: How does the word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each affect meaning? Is one more effective than another? Why? What does this exercise bring up about the difficulty of reading translated texts? How do different translations effect the tone of the sentence?

The second translation is very simple and streamlined. It drops “in his bed” which was awkwardly squished into the other translations. On the other hand, it also drops the absurd imagery of a giant bug in a human bed, which is hilarious.

Both the first and third translations contrast the both the fact of a large bug in a human bed, but also the description of the bug. “Gigantic insect” mixes a goofy word with a fairly formal term. “Enormous” and “bug” are both fairly informal, but they differ in syllable count. These contrasts highlight the absurdity of the predicament.

I think syntax plays a large role in affecting meaning. In Translation 4, there is strong negative diction, but the only reason these terms were able to take is because Gregor Samsa’s name was placed later on in the sentence in order to distance Gregor. Otherwise, we’d just feel really bad for Gregor because he had to be so ugly, instead of fearing and disliking Gregor. Syntax is able to take you with or push you away from characters, and how someone feel about a character, especially the main character, is very important in a novel.

The fourth translation has far and away the most distant meaning from the rest. It is harsh, with negatively connotated diction like monstrous and vermin. It also puts Gregory Samsa away from the beginning of the sentence, and in that, distances him from the reader. In regards to punctuation, the heavy use of commas and interjecting phrases, the fourth translation builds suspense before getting to the “monstrous vermin.” In this, it gives the start of the story a horror vibe, like it could be told around campfires. This horror theme doesn’t work well with translations one and three. The use of structure with “As Gregor Samsa woke”’ and “When Gregor Samsa awoke” takes the reader with Gregor, so we identify more with him. The tone in translation 2, as a short and to-the-point version, is more informative.

    This exercise shows how different translations of the same text can be.

Translation 2, in particular, shows how information can be simply dropped. He could be at his bathroom at a mirror, we don’t know now. This show that by reading a translation, we might not just get a different interpretation of information, but simply miss some of it.

Translation 4 shows how drastically the tone can vary from translation to translation. Like, if this person translated diplomatic or military messages, I would be very scared because they could traslate “several shots” into “a multitude of bullets” and freak people out with a harsher tone.