As a part of our study we viewed the movie The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard. This blog task is a part of our post viewing activity. Here are my views.

What harm has been done to humanity by the Biblical narration or that of Milton’s in The Paradise Lost? What sort of damage does narrative like ‘The Da Vinci Code’ do to humanity?

Bible (Genesis):-

According to bible, women are inferior and they considered as a root of problem. They are responsible for their sufferings. The role of men and women is also decided in Bible like Eve is always in Kitchen and Adam does the intellectual talks. Milton has given argumentative nature to Eve. Eve is silent, but she is able to convince Adam to eat apple in Paradise lost. In Christianity Bible doesn’t allow people to ask questions so their knowledge about religion in very limited.

Da vinci code:-

In this text many people became the enemy and killed one another on the name of religion. Some problems are solved if religion is removed from human life. Leigh Teabing thinking like that. Robert Langdon keeps the secret of the Holy Grail or the Sarcophagus, he kneels down before it and it can be called the damaging of humanity. It was like a pilgrimage of Robert.

What difference do you see in the portrayal of 'Ophelia' (Kate Winslet) in Kenneth Brannagh's Hamlet, 'Elizabeth' (Helena Bonham Carter) in Kenneth Brannagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or 'Hester Prynne' (Demi Moore) in Roland Joffé's The Scarlet Letter' or David Yates's 'Hermione Granger' (Emma Watson) in last four Harry Potter films - and 'Sophie Neuve' (Audrey Tautau) in Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code? How would justify your answer?

When we compare ‘Hamlet’s’ Ophelia with ‘The Da Vinci Code’s’ Sophie Neuve and ‘Harry Potter’s’ Hermione, we can see many differences in their portrayals. The female characters in 21^stcentury are getting more space and they are smarter than the male characters. They are portrayed as double marginalized whether it is in reality or in the movie. Rowling represents Hermione as a intelligent girl and more knowledgeable than Harry but she is not the protagonist. Women’s body is objectified however strong she may be. Kenneth Brannagh has objectified the character of Ophelia as she is shown nude while it was not needed. The idea of objectifying is always used for women. Hermione becomes a reason for rivalry between the two friends. People like beautiful, slim women and many people do not take their wives to parties or any public function because of their ugliness. Sophie in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ is beautiful. Feminine sacredness is shown when Robert kisses Sophie on her forehead. Her body is not objectified as the camera doesn’t roll over her body.

When we do traditional reading of the novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’, Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology, Harvard University emerges as protagonist and Sir Leigh Teabing, a British Historian as antagonist. Who will claim the position if we do atheist reading of the novel?

From the view of an atheist, Leigh Teabing would be the protagonist. He wanted to expose the truth so that people would be free from suffering. Robert becomes a secret keepers as he says, “let them keep the faith and not let know the truth”. Teabing said, you can liberate the people if you expose the truth. Silas is like human bomb. Suddenly if religion is removed from human life the life order would be set as people will become responsible and will take care of others thinking that no one is up there. Money is a cover up and Teabing wanted to reveal truth. By still keeping the secret as it is and kneeling down before Sarcophagus, it is the damaging of humanity. It is like a pilgrimage of Robert. Had it been Teabing, then it would have opened up. Robert is the blind follower when he tells the incident of his falling in the well and at that time he thought that Jesus is there with him to save him. So by reading these points from the view of an atheist, Leigh Teabing can be called the protagonist of this movie.

Thank you.

Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

My views are here on the novel "Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes...............

1.What is the meaning of phrase ‘Blood Money’ in Veronica’s reply email?

Sarah Ford, mother of Veronica sends letter to Tony Webster and 500 pounds. When Tony tells this to Veronica, she says it was “Blood Money”. This novel is about lack of God, faith, love and Karmic philosophy etc. Here blood money means the money earned by KILLING or HURTING the innocent people. Here killing doesn’t mean physical killing or murder but the killing of feelings and emotions. When Tony and Veronica were in a relationship, her father had offered him huge amount of money but after that, they broke up. Then Adrian sent a letter to Tony asking for his permission to date Veronica. Tony, in response to that letter told him to meet her mother. Due to this, she lost her everything. There can be two reasons from Veronica’s point of view. One is that she may thinks that Sarah, her mother was responsible for Adrian’s suicide as he might have felt guilty after making relation with Sarah. Another reason can be that she thinks that Tony is responsible for Adrian’s suicide. If Tony won’t have written in reply to that letter, Adrian wouldn’t have met Sarah. So we can say that Veronica thinks that Sarah and Tony both are responsible for Adrian’s suicide, and so she calls that money as blood money.

But he can’t understand this word. Mrs. Sarah Ford and Adrian fall in love and the result came out that mentally retarded child was born. So, this son is the brother of Veronica and she cared for him. Veronica suffered in society and she has to sacrifice the entire critical situation. Through the letter of Tony innocent child also suffered a lot. So, these all things happened because of one letter and behind Adrian’s suicide also Tony plays a vital role. That’s why she wrote “Blood Money” in the reply.  

2.Do you see any possible reason in the suicide of Adrian Finn?

                                                              

Earlier Adrian had good relation with Veronica. But once time he wrote letter to Tony about their (Veronica and Adrian) relationship. It is the wish of Veronica that he should writes letter to Tony. But it is the fault of them. Tony feels jealous of their relation wrote one letter to Adrian about Mrs. Sarah Ford. It is the loose stone of this novel and because of this Adrian meets Sarah and then all things started. But then Adrian feels shame because it is not the healthy relationship and he commits suicide.

  

3.How was Veronica related to Adrian, the one suffering in care-in-the-community?

Veronica and Junior Adrian can be called siblings as Sarah and Adrian were the parents. We can also say that Adrian, who was Tony’s friend, was suffering from mental trauma and had gone mad as he can be called the step father of Veronica.

4.In the light of new revelations, how do you read character of Veronica? Instinctive, manipulative, calculating, stubborn, haughty, sacrificial, trustworthy, Good Samaritan?

When we go through the whole story, we can read her character as trustworthy as well as sacrificial. Earlier we found her calculative when she broke up with Tony. In the next part Veronica shows Tony a group of mentally retarded people but he doesn’t understand what she tried to convey. She can be called calculative because Tony was never able to understand her and she thought that if she continues her relation with Tony, they will never be happy. In the end we can see that Veronica is taking care of junior Adrian so we can call her as sacrificial.

5.What do you mean by Unreliable Narrator? Is Tony Webster classifiable as Unreliable Narrator?

'The Sense of an Ending' novel divided into two parts. First part is all about imperfections of memory and second part is all about inadequacies of documentation. But how can we say that Tony narrates all these things are true? Tony can also be called an unreliable narrator because he starts his narration by saying that “I remember, in no particular order”. Tony Webster also remembered his School days, Class of History, Class of English, Friendship with Veronica all these things. But we can’t fully faith on these stories because it is the memory of him. He minutely told the whole story of his life but may be it happened that many things of his life he can’t narrate and it is the missing dots of the story. We can say that whatever the narrator is going to tell is the thoughts of his broken memory as he joins the missing dots with his own perspective and imagination.




Thank you.....

My experiment

            : My experiment:

We can learn many things from the surrounding. And through this we can do different experiments according to our taste. One can do many things with the help of imagination. And I do the same.

I love gardening. So I grow plants at my home. I have many indoor and outdoor plants at my home. Sometimes I do the experiments on it.

Once I imagine to grow vegetable at home. And I thought to grow coriander and fenugreek. It is easy to grow with the help of seeds. And it is handy seeds. As we know that winter is the best season for vegetables. We can get fresh and many different kinds of veggies in this season rather than any other season. So I choose winter for planting both the seeds.

First, I collected required things for planting like: Plastic vessel, small piece of cotton cloth, black soil, wooden dust, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds, water.

And then I started planting.

First I take plastic vessel and make small holes at the bottom of the vessel then I put a small piece of cotton cloth at the bottom. Then, I pour large amount of black soil mixed with wooden dust and then sprinkle fenugreek seeds. We have to do another layer of black soil on the seeds. After this I drizzle some water with the help of water spray. Same process does with coriander seeds.

Coriander seeds

These are the pictures of coriander   

coriander seeds

               

seeds after grooming

Add caption

coriander leaves

I used this coriander in sabji for garnishing and I also make green chutney.

These are the pictures of fenugreek.

fenugreek seeds

seeds after grooming

                                                          

                                      

I also make numkin with the help of fenugreek leaves.

There are many advantages of organic food. Like: we can grow many kinds of vegetables at our home. We can take extra care of it.

According to me organic food is tastier than hybrid food. But there are some limits that we cannot grow everything at our home....