Yes, a ripple. Just like the one our
teacher drew in the whiteboard this afternoon.
Ripples are undulations that appear in the surface of the water when it is disturbed by some energy. It moves and modifies itself, letting the energy flow. This movement can be seen as a metaphor of everything that is alive in the planet. When you read a book, see a movie, listen to a song, or see a picture you become aware of many aspects of them that influence your thoughts and ways of perceiving life; they enter to your mind.
Without knowing, you are having a
connection with the artist, who was influenced by the world when working in his
piece of art. Something that happened years ago, far away from where you are
sitting right now, is taking part in your life. Had you ever thought about it?
This piece of art is the result of a person and the world around him, and now
this world is becoming your world too; something that occurred in the time the
artist was working is influencing your life too.
If you have watched The Butterfly Effect, you may have thought about how a little, insignificant action can change reality as we know it. Therefore, you have in mind that we are connected, and that every action we perform is causing ripples in the big ocean of the world.
If you have watched The Butterfly Effect, you may have thought about how a little, insignificant action can change reality as we know it. Therefore, you have in mind that we are connected, and that every action we perform is causing ripples in the big ocean of the world.
This is what Cunningham wants to say
through his book The Hours:
that every action always resonates, that there is always a transcendental
communication causing ripples. It can be evidenced in the connectedness
existent between the main characters: Virginia Wool (author of Mrs. Dalloway), Mrs. Dalloway
(the character), and Mrs. Brown (the reader of Mrs. Dalloway). Every event,
thought and decision made by Virginia Woolf has an impact on the writing of her
novel and on the reader.
So, I invite you to take consciousness of
the importance of our actions –from the smallest to the biggest– and to think
before saying or doing something, because they always have an impact on the
whole world as we are all connected.
I completely agree with the fact that we are all connected in some way or another...but I also believe that the world in where we live and the way that society works are giving us less time to think about the consequences of our actions. We live in a world where the people are becoming more individualist and selfish.
ResponderBorrarAlthough we live in society, share experiences and our actions influence in the life of others... What will happen if we continue to live and think in this way?
I agree with you that all of us are connected, but I would like to add that our actions in life are all connected too, as we have mentioned in classes. I do not believe in destiny, but sometimes I felt that Karma exists and that our actions can influence in how our life is shaped, obviously there are some moments in which I start thinking about it and I say "I didn't do something that terrible to reveive this." But after being under such important situations as having lost my mother I realized that every single moment in our life is helpful to grow and to be stronger, that's why I believe that not only are all of us connected, but all of our actions are connected to what we live too. Do you remember the Freytag's pyramid? well I disagree with him, because life has not have just one climax. Indeed, our life is full of them, and we have to be able to continue.
ResponderBorrarI am glad that you mentioned “The butterfly effect” movie as an example… I thought about it while listening to the ripple’s explanation. It is really interesting to take into consideration the “vision of the artist” because through the reading of “The Hours” we can classify and differentiate which relationships leads into future events in the novel: we are able analyze the events and understand not only the author’s vision, but also Woolf’s vision.
ResponderBorrarSadly, we are not characters in a film or movie (as far as I am aware) so we are not able to understand the real meaning of some connections between friends and family in real life, and the results that these links will bring in the future. Maybe a good lesson from the novel is to be ourselves more aware of what surround us…
Christina Cortez Á.
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ResponderBorrarEste comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderBorrarI would like to add that the ripples allow Cunningham to develop the idea on the permeable boundaries between life and dead exposed by Mrs. Woolf’s work Mrs. Dalloway and the ripples concept which connects one person to another or one event to another. This work, The Hours, keeps a link that started in Mrs. Dalloway: links between characters. That is why the ripples are inevitable since these types of works try to show us how an action has different repercussions.
ResponderBorrarBesides the connectedness existent between the main characters, another important connection I want to highlight is the ripples. They, as manifestation of connectedness, are related to the art’s contribution. What I mean is that Art is something that connects elements. I found a good example while I was reading a few notes on Artwork critique by the Goshen College days ago; artists connect things and move the viewer’s eyes with repetition. For instance, if a painter repeated a color like painting a tree and a face green, they are connected by the green color.
I enjoyed Reading your entry, María Andrea. I agree with you all as well, guys. I also reflected on this image when the teacher provided his explanation in classes—it really made sense for me and it’s the perfect example to understand how life works. Ironically, water could have many symbolisms, and some of them have to do with the concept of purity and fertility, higher wisdom and circulation: like rivers, oceans, lakes and the rain itself; water is everywhere and touches everything—In my opinion, water is the representation of life itself; therefore, the ripples are a representation of this connectedness that we all experiment with one another.
ResponderBorrarThis topic also made me reflect on the concept of forgiveness and communication. To forgive, we—literally—need somebody else to do it; indeed, most of the emotions that we feel require to have another being in order to experiment it. In my opinion, this is also another example of how life works; we need somebody else in order to feel too because we are connected. From this point, communication also plays an important role, given that in order to forgive, we need to communicate something, which is not necessary through words; it could be through different ways like Arts, for instance.
If you allow me, I would like to attach an interview of the famous singer, Alanis Morissette. She refers to the topic of forgiveness in a very deep way and it’s very interesting to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCfUSkhBqEM
María Andrea, I agree with your view on ripples and they meaning in real life. As you mentioned, these undulations are present in both Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours, mainly reflected in death. In both texts, death can be understand as the ripple that makes people –main character and the reader- meditate on their own lives and what they have made with them. In other words, what kind of decisions they have made that have allowed them to be living what they are living. For instance, Clarissa, who in Mrs. Dalloway lived with her husband, Richard, but she questioned so. On the other hand, in The Hours, she is free to live the life she wanted, and that included living with a woman, the one that she loved; she is also showing that a person should not always follow what society imposes on.
ResponderBorrarSo, considering what you stated, every single thing acts like a ripple, but whether it has an effect on us or not depends on us, and our own ability to realize these little things. Sometimes we, as human beings, complain a lot about everything, but it’s necessary to see, feel and accept these ripples to change in a way our perspectives.
I agree with you. It's known that everything that we do has an impact in our life and probably in others life. Even though most of the time this process is unconscious, our brain is continuously working to make meaningful connections between our experiences and some input created by something in the outside world. In the same way, an author may provide some information of the background of the story, some themes that may be hidden between the lines, some relationships between time that are not that explicit in the text to make the reader be part of the reading and decoding process of the text. In Hemingway work, we could find a writing style called the tip of the iceberg that it is consciously used by the author in which the writing shows only superficial aspects and leaves others aspects to be decoded by the reader. In The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway, the authors play with the time and characters and between them there are some gaps that are not easily noticed at a first sight. Therefore, the reader has to link the pieces in order to get the real meaning of the text; to follow the flow of the ripples, and realize how thing are related. (Daniel Riquelme.)
ResponderBorrar