Response to My Name is Khan "from the epiglottis"

I just rewatched My Name is Khan and now that I have the movie fresh in my mind I want to respond to it. The first feeling that comes to my mind is of how powerful and emotional this movie is. Rizwan was the perfect protagonist. What made him so perfect as a protagonist in a movie like this, that has a powerful message against racism and prejudice, was his disability, Asperger's Syndrome. Many injustices were done to Rizwan throughout his life, from the time when he was bullied in school ,while in India, by the other kids to the time when he was agressively searched by the San Francisco International Airport security. These injustices were greatly amplified to us as the viewers because of the fact that he could not express his emotions, he couldn't even cry. The fact that we know that he is innocent and defenseless makes what happens to him feel even worse because he can't defend himself.

In this movie, Rizwan also plays the role of the voice of reason. From the time he was taught by his Ammi that there were only two people in the world, good people and bad people, he lived by this code and he never changed throughout the movie. By doing this he embodies what is good. The fact that he marries Mandira out of pure love regardless of her religion is proof that he lived by this code. I think that Rizwan's character is the ideal character to posses as fellow human beings, always, but espacially after terrible harm has been done to us like when 9/11 occured. By being able to control ourselves and our emotions during a time of pain, we could be able to think clearly and not blame innocents as it happened with Rizwan's sister in law while she was walking and was thrown to the ground by an idiot who stupedly believed she was a terrorist or with Sam's death by the hands of a bunch of racist bullies. To say the least, I really enjoyed this movie, again.

harry potter

Harry Potter was a really good movie. They are making all the previous movies make sense in some aspects. They are showing why Harry Potter is the chosen one and what The Dark Lord has been searching for. Their was a part in the movie where they tell a story about three brothers that have to cross a river and they use magic to make a bridge. Death comes and is angry that they trick him, but death gives them each a wish. The last brother asks for a cloak which will make him invisible to death and before he dies he gives it to his son. Me and my roommate believe that Harry Potter is a descendant from the very first three wizards because the third brother gives his son before he dies and Harry Potter's father gives him the cloak, that was Harry Potter father's cloak.

Hero named Khan

In every hero story there in a power that makes the hero different than anyone else and the hero also has a weak point, an Achilles heel, to try to stop him from completing his goal. In the move my name is Khan. Rizwan Khan suffered from Asperger's syndrome. Many people would believe that this is Khan weak point, but I believe this and his intelligent are his powers that makes him different from everyone else. He is made innocent to people who know him because of the Asperger's syndrome and his intelligent helps him get by in his journey making him able to complete tasks and to survive throughout the obstacles he faces. I believe his weakness is that his Muslim because 9/11 made the U.S hate people who look like Muslims and Muslims. He is made to be an enemy to some people who will not be willing to understand the differences between people who are the terrorist and the people who are persecuted just because of their looks.

iDracula difference from Dracula

So I just got done reading iDracula and I found a lot of differences in this story from Bram Stoker's Dracula we read from the beginning of the semester. In iDracula I did not even know who Dracula was in the story. The story did not have anything written about Dracula unless someone such as Mina, Harker, Lucy, or Van Helsing was talking about him. This story gave great information about the feelings of the four characters recently stated and gave me great images to imagine that Stoker's Dracula did not. In iDracula pretty much for the characters: Mina is the hero of the story, Harker is the victim, Van Helsing is love struck for Mina, Lucy is a slut, and Dracula is no where to be found.

Discussion Questions

In response to Ryan's question (#4)

This is not your ordinary book you just come along, it is much more comprehensive. Just when you think you have it figured out, the story finds another way to twist itself. One of the many ways this novel speaks to you is through imagery and visualization. There are numerous pictures, and pages with just one sentences on them which gave that sentence much more impact and made you really think about it. The pictures in book weren't ordinary pictures, they were pictures that made you stop and think and try to find away to connect it to the reading. I think this is Foer's way of making us discover and find out our own way through the novel, just as Oskar is too.

The language of the text is very simple, but extremely complex, Oskar's intelligence level is much higher than your average 9 year old, making it confusing and hard to read his narration without questioning it. Oskar is extremely repetitive, repeating phrase and words that resonate with us. The writing style in the book helps us discover the book by for the first 100 or so pages we are still left in the dark about a lot of things, we never really know who is talking and have to piece together the pages. Once again i think this is one of Foer's ways of helping us to discover the book. He doesn't want us to just read through the pages effortlessly, but to have a journey and discover things along the way, just as Oskar is having his journey through Manhattan.

Throughout the book, Oskar is never one to say it bluntly, he will say it about never 100% straight forward. We have to assume a lot of things or use or imagination to fill in where he leaves us. We are forced to fill in all gaps or confused spots, with our imagination and ideas of what we think is going on. And they are constantly changing. I will admit that this book is one of my favorite read! Not being a huge reading fan myself, i found it very entertaining and captivating. I constantly had my mind thinking and never left me with a dull moment.

Interconnectivity

I just wanted to write a little bit about interconnectivity; after spending some time thinking about it I realized how much interconnectivity is a huge theme in the book. For example, Oskar is already connected to thousands of people through his experience of his father's death on. He is further connected to other people as he searches for the meaning his father's key by talking to everyone who has the last name Black. What is interesting is that Foer further connects all the people who have the last name Black. Everyone who Oskar visits comes to see Hamlet. There Oskar describes all the Blacks that he sees out in the audience. Everything there is connected through Oskar even though they don't realize it. In another example, when Oskar's father is telling the story about the Sixth Borough, he says a sentence that had a lot of themes of connectivity. "The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body." All of the items that he described are all what connects the boy and the girl. In addition, each item doesn't directly belong to either the girl or the boy. For example, the guilt belonged to his great-uncle. In this way, Foer connects not only the boy and the girl, but everyone whose items listed. Foer uses connectivity throughout the whole entire novel. Most notably is the structure of the novel. He uses different perspectives so that to the reader, everything seems very disconnected. However, as the reader continues to read, we realize that everything is starting to connect with each other, until finally at the end, everything is connected and makes sense. I think what Foer is trying to portray here is that everyone in the world is connected to one another; it's just whether we believe that we are connected or not. Someone on the street might be connected to me because we went to the same school. Some may argue that we aren't connected because we have had no physical interaction; however, Foer believes that even the smallest action can connect two people.

Response to Ryan's Question #4

To respond to Question 4 from Ryan's email. Some of the techniques that Foer uses are the items that Oskar finds and uses to answer questions about his father. One of these items was the key Oskar found. A key holds an infinite amount of posible directions for the story to go. A key is something that everyone can relate to because everyone has keys. A key can change the course of the story completely. Also the use of the name or word "black". The same clues that Foer describes Oskar finding are our clues aswell. When Oskar speaks in the novel he is seeing and describing what we are reading about. The different items give us an insight into the novel and possible outcomes. Foer also uses the technique of multiple points of view. Unlike other stories that only tell a story from one point of view, Foer tells the story from various different characters; Oskar, his grandmother and his grandfather. This technique becomes very useful in putting all the pieces of the story together to make sence in the end.

The relationship formed between the author and the reader is very close. The author uses the catastrophy of September 11th as the main reason of the main character's problem or his pain. Just like Oskar lost his father many readers can relate in the fact that many other people died on that day, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and many other family members and friends. And even those of us who didn't lose anyone close to us because of September 11th still feel a strong connection to it because we live in the U.S and probably remember exactly where we were and what we were doing at that very moment in time because of the great shock that even though the U.S is considered by many as the most powerful country in the world, we are vulnerable. In a way, Foer's use of September 11th can also count as another technique because it helps the reader relate to the main character's problem.