Grammar Review: Proofreading for Errors on Student Quiz
Quiz 4
Irony propels the plot of “The Missing Person” in Back of the World because Leo or Slim’s life is the epitome of irony. Irony is the ability to see certain contradictions, and is a reversal of expectations born from hidden contradictions in a person’s character. Corruptive irony can sum it up for this short story, because the more you’re influence in life with narcissism, the more pure we become. Irony first made its appearance at a religious order where Leo begins to find himself which starts his journey.
Furthermore, Leo began at the religious order and his goal was to find love, but with also scorn and hate. He joined the religious order to get away from his major priorities in life. He also joined to find an easy job instead of selling illegal narcotics on the street. While at the religious order, Leo developed a reputation as a killer and he earns respect from the nuns who also hated him before because of the lack of persona that reveals his personality. While landing a job to raise money with his peer, Jerry who is a professional hustler introduces Leo pretty much to irony and the real world. With this Leo had to change his persona to be someone he isn’t which neither a hustler or to have faith in religion.
Consequently, Leo tries to be a hustler which he kind of fails at, but with Jerry by his side, they were unbeatable. Jerry and Leo raises enough money to go to Las Vegas and with this in mind, Leo thinks of finding love and redemption in Las Vegas. While arriving to Las Vegas with Jerry, Leo gets the nick name “Slim.”
With Leo now being called Slim, he found love which is so ironic. He came for a completely different reason, but he found love with a stranger. The strangers were playing games with Slim, while Slim was so busy trying to find someone who was a dead beat. It was ironic for Leo to finally not be the missing person anymore since his last words were “It’s all right. I’m here.” Together with this, Leo would now not be able to go back to his old self again, but now to be “Slim.”
All in all, irony propelled the short story by having him enroll in a religious order to get away from his responsibilities and to not find god or himself, but in the end he found his purified self.
Should We Avoid Chimeras That Are Too Common And/Or Too Obvious? The Answer Is Yes and No
1. UCLA, USC, Yale, etc.
2. 4.0 GPA
3. BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, etc.
4. Winning Lotto, getting rich, etc.
5. Acquiring a super model or the equivalent of beauty to satisfy your rapacity.
6. Jewelry, designer clothes, accessories, etc.
On the other hand, the psychological underpinnings of the chimera are universal and therefore "common" in terms of motivation:
1. self-respect and dignity
2. belonging
3. perfection
4. free will
5. freedom
6. creativity
7. control
8. certainty
9. a life without sweat or tears: Hakuna Matata
10. individual distinction that makes you stand out from the herd
Inevitably, the motivations behind the chimera are common, but ideally, the manner in which you choose to describe your chimera will be unique.
Even if you choose a common chimera, like a car, you must be unique in your approach.
You Can Choose a Common Chimera But Only If . . .
If You Choose a Common Chimera, Your Personal Narrative Has to be Highly Stylized and Rich in Hyperbole.
Secondly, know the movitation and the mood. The following contains the motivation: Ultimate Masculinity; the mood: Intoxication
Hi, my name is Jeff and I need a Lexus. I don’t need one because of the many impressive and scintillating Lexus ads I’ve seen on TV, however convincing they may be, but on first-hand knowledge. My Uncle Macy, who resides in Los Angeles, owns a Lexus GS 350 and one hot afternoon after finishing our lunch at the Misto Café, sensing my palpable yearning to drive his car, perhaps evinced by my puppy-eyed stare of longing at the glimmering car key he held in his hand, Macy invited me to sit behind the steering wheel. Here we were, four of my relatives and I, our bellies bursting with gorgonzola tortellini, umpteen loaves of buttered French bread, and tiramisu, sitting inside the Lexus at a steep incline on Crenshaw Blvd. From a dead stop I decided to see how Macy’s Lexus could move up the hill burdened with a thousand pounds of human flesh and with the AC on full-blast and I am here to tell you that his gunmetal Lexus GS 350 with the silver chrome cross-guard automatic shifter didn’t flinch at the daunting task I had given it. It accelerated up the hill with a brassy insouciance that made me feel like I was riding a magic carpet.
The car did not grunt, whine, or complain. To the contrary, it seemed to relish in the opportunity to flex its very capable muscles. I had the feeling that, like the Border collie whose instincts compel him to herd sheep, the Lexus was doing precisely the very thing it was designed to be doing and, as such, was fulfilling its purpose in life. The ergonomics of course were flawless. The seat’s lumbar support so exquisite that my chronic sciatica pains were immediately assuaged.
The steering, contrary to snobbish BMW-owners who snub the Lexus as being “too soft,” was crisp, precise, and empowering.
But to praise the Lexus’ perfect engineering is to dwell on the mundane and the predictable. There were deeper, more important things taking place, namely, I was enjoying the Lexus experience. Within seconds of pressing the gas pedal, a warm oceanic sensation, not unlike arousal, stirred within me. I don’t know how to explain it but for lack of a better word I was overcome by a Lexusation, a delicious tingle that surged up my spine, my neck, and, finally, my brain, filling me with an ecstatic explosion of serotonin neurotransmitters so that, within seconds, I felt I had become one with the car. A missing part of myself had been found. A restlessness that nagged me all my life had ceased as I ascended toward a still diamond-twinkling ocean plane and luxuriated in the Lexus’ Bose eight-speaker system. Like Orpheus, the Lexus had tamed the savage beast.
But upon exiting the Lexus, something terrible happened to me. I seemed to have lost all my testosterone. I felt like a damsel in a torn dress with mascara running down her face, lost at some obscure bus stop, waiting for Daddy to pick her up after being dumped by her rakish boyfriend. I was lost, disoriented, overcome by self-pity and the sense that I could not go forward with my life.
A similar occurance happens to Akaky in "The Overcoat," which like my Lexus presents the pathology of the chimera evidenced by _____________, ____________, ____________, and ________________.
Chimera of Never Leaving the Security Blanket
As an infant I had assigned the name Geekee to my favorite blanket. Tattered and pee-stained, Geekee was my prize possession, my cocoon of silvery spun silk, which I carried with me every where I went for my first four years on this planet. At night, I rubbed the blanket’s corners on my cheek, the pleasant tickling sensation lulling me to sleep.
To my consternation, my parents were not as enamored with Geekee as I was. They complained that Geekee smelled. It was threadbare. It had visible stains that I paraded to the public who must have believed that my parents were too cheap to buy me a new blanket. At four years of age I had “outgrown” Geekee, they said, and it was time Geekee and I part ways. Every time they suggested getting rid of it, I would go into a rage that would not subside until they dropped the business of me losing Geekee. This battle between my parents and me continued until one day, as we were moving across the country from Florida to California my father slyly opened his window and told me to look out the window opposite his, for he said there was a baby alligator on the side of the road. As I looked in vain to spot the alligator, my father ripped Geekee from my hands and threw it out his open window. It all happened so fast that I didn’t know my father had grabbed my blanket. Instead, I believed his lie that the powerful wind had sucked Geekee from my grasp and had flung the blanket out of the window. I told my father to stop the car at once. We had to retrieve Geekee. But my father said we had to keep on going. Besides, he said, Geekee was now keeping the baby alligator warm. With no mother to fend for him, the little reptile needed the blanket’s warmth far more than I did. Imagining the baby alligator swathed in my blanket consoled me somewhat. At least Geekee had not gone to waste. While losing Geekee had caused a minor trauma, I got over the loss in a day or two.
Everyone has had some form of a Geekee or other, something that comforts us because of the familiarity and the attachment we have formed with it. But security blankets such as a child’s literal blanket are easy to identify. As Gogol's "The Overcoat" shows us, there are other security blankets, far more insidious, that often confine or cripple us without our knowing it so that our dependence on them becomes in essence a Faustian Bargain. To better understand these types of security blankets, we should break them down into four categories. First, there is “the tiger’s claw beneath the velvet carpet,” the comfortable sanctuary that is killing us even as we coast along our stagnant existence without any apparent suffering and therefore have no motivation for change. Second, there is the power symbol, which becomes so important to our sense of status and identity that we coddle it at the expense of respecting others. Third, there are props we rely on because these props, we believe, flatter us and make us more appealing to others. These props could include a particular wardrobe, a mustache, spiked hair or anything we believe gives us a “special look” that flatters us. These props may have increased our cachet at one time, but over time those who are dependent on their props eventually become pathetic parodies of themselves. Fourth, there are those who are so oblivious to their dependence on security blankets that their entire existence can be defined by a vast network of security blankets from which these dependent souls are forever entangled.
Better, More Specific Chimera Examples
1. Becoming Number One at chess, Internet poker, some computer game or other
2. Botox or some kind of plastic surgery, nose reduction, etc.
3. Achieving your ideal weight
4. A position of power that you abused
5. Carmex lip balm: moisturize and bring youth to your lips; you actually dry them out.
6. All these fruit drinks with edenic trees, birds, and fruits and the words natural; in reality, their high fructose corn syrup causes liver damage and diabetes.
The Chimera of Power and the VIP
When we abuse power in the spirit of inflating our grandiosity, we lose proportion of the situation and bad things happen to us, a sort of curse, or I should say things blow out of proportion. Know your Power Allowance. Don't overplay it (Johnny Depp, oatmeal, pot stickers)
1. The Very Important Person has a chimera; it is power and status. The VIP enjoys the cloak of status, a sort of overcoat, and he has power, but does he know how to use it? We all have Power Allowance and we must know where we stand. The VIP is addicted to a life of facade and grandstanding to hide his personal demons. The greater your facade of grandstanding, the harder you fall. Consider "The Caveman Scream."
2. Before the Very Important Person was a Not Very Important Person; thus he was new to power and this is always dangerous. He is compelled to constantly grandstand and grandstanding always betrays how small and scared we really are. Having a sense of humility and being secure of one's social rank is part of the Iranian idea behind Taarof.
3. One of the story’s themes is the importance of proportion. Akaky lacks it and so does the Very Important Person. You must have a sense of proportion to be successful in life. The VIP is engorged with power and grandiosity, like the Capos in Man’s Search for Meaning. Power without proportion is solipsism and madness. The VIP’s over reaction to Akaky makes his own friend uncomfortable and perhaps embarrassed for the VIP.
A professor was arrrested for intimidating students because he got so drunk on his power.
4. The Language of Power has several signs: making people wait, creating ostentatious theatrics and more. Create a list of 10 or so.
5. The VIP’s rebuke mortifies Akaky to death.
6. Tell the story of the man who dreams of vindicating himself to his former girlfriend before his mother wakes him up. Dreams of grandiosity always betray our smallness and personal failings.
An Example about the Abuse of Power as a Chimera
Twenty years ago, a colleague shared with me a story about a professor he knew who became enraged whenever a student in class expressed disagreement with him. He was one of those professors who didn't like independent thinking but rather used the class to massage his narcissitic ego. He’d puff himself up and blurt, “Who’s got the PhD!” as a way of shutting up the contrary student.
Over time this bellicose professor became crazier, opting for an even more intimidating method to silence his students. He’d bring a hand gun, nestled inside the top compartment of his briefcase, which he put flat on the front of his desk. Whenever a student disagreed with him, the professor would slowly open the briefcase so that the students could see the butt of the gun. "What did you say?" he'd ask. "Nothing," the frightened student would respond. "That's what I thought you said," the professor said, ending the disagreement and closing the briefcase.
Soon after this practice the professor was arrested and no doubt fired from the university.
Clearly, this professor had become deranged by the chimera of power, an intoxicant that poisons the Very Important Person in Gogol's masterpiece, "The Overcoat." Both the professor and the VIP evidence the death blows of the chimera of power evidenced by _______________, ______________, _________________, and ____________________.
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