The second exam of the course is now available. In order to best prepare for the exam, make sure that you have read Zone One as well as the articles by i attached it Kinitra Brooks and attached it Mike Mariani in the Week 3 module. Please also read the Week 2 discussion board posts, Day 2 and i wrote it Day 3, as well as the wrote it down also Alien/Alienation group exercise. You should also read the Week 3 discussion board posts closely. I have commented on some of these and will continue commenting on the discussion boards throughout the week.

Please let me know if you have any trouble opening the exam file or if you have any questions.

this is week 2 post 3

Zone One Novel

The first few pages of the novel are marred with many flashbacks. Mark Spitz looks back at his childhood and past in the first pages of the novel. He has reminiscences of the life prior to the plague. He views himself as being mediocre before the plague, for instance, he went through schooling, work and engaged in relationships with little effort. We could argue that his life before the plague was just plain and uninspiring. We identify that he had few friends and he was staying with his parents. However, we are able to identify the zeal and desire Spitz had of living in New York. He considered New York as a ‘magnificent contraption’ where individuals worked in unison.

New York

The writer instantly offers the perception that New York City is a place in ruins and a place that is ever active. The author argues that the city in death was similar to the time before the plague. The only distinction before and after the plague is that in the latter, there were fewer individuals. This shows the constant activity within the city.

American Checklist

The American checklist is symbolic of the course of life in America. It represents the different stages that an individual goes through in life. The checklist includes different hurdles such as joining kindergarten, preschool, junior high school, college and subsequently succeeding in life. Therefore, the American checklist refers to the different stages people go through before they ultimately attain success in life. The checklist in life exerts a lot of psychological pressure, and I, for one, am not an exception, I really feel the pressure in meeting my checklist.

P.A.S.D

According to the novel, P.A.S.D is Post-Apocalyptic Survivor Dysfunction. The condition presents horrific memories of situations that individuals went through and this, in turn, makes them think and act irrationally and unpredictably. The condition makes it difficult for the victims to form new attachments. The condition has a psychological effect on Mark Spitz as he constantly sees horrific recollections of himself. The acronym P.A.S.D sounds like the word ‘past’.

Define both alien and alienation?

• Alien refer to a thing which is unusual and different from the social set up of the present location and people. That can differ from the outlook, behavior, and norms. Alien is “Other” that means not from us and don’t belongs to ourselves.
• Alienation to isolate and separate someone from the community or himself due to specific reasons like Race; class, caste, color etc.
• Karl Marx’s Theory of Alienation describes the separation of people from aspects of their type as an importance of living in a society of stratified social classes. The isolation from the self is a value of being a automatic part of a communal class, the condition of which disillusions a person from their humanity.
• List examples of aliens, whether they are from literature, popular culture, or “real life.” What comes to mind when you hear the word alien?

Literature: human being is a social animal its always painful to alienate someone as a physical mechanism that prohibits the disconnection and alienation from others, result unhealthy, unsatisfied life the concept of alienation is used in literature here not for the human but as the human being is treated on the grounds as aliens reasons is racism, sharing representing the painful and pleasurable process of crossing differences that will take him to on position of a guilty for being what he is that let him to actually experiencing the other’s world beyond a mere willingness to understand it. May be rejection from the one set up id not the acceptability of the other community which is more disturbing Sharing blurs and shifts boundaries and discloses a stable, autonomous identity to be a myth – sharing becomes a symbol against the binary construction of self and other and thus establishes a critical image for reclaiming social relations in Butler’s descriptions, as Lauren’s views express:

But if everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture? Who would cause anyone unnecessary pain? I’ve never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help. I wish I could give it to people. Failing that, I wish I could find other people who have it, and live among them. (Sower 105-106)

Popular Culture:

In popular culture alien is identical with alien being and a living being from outside the earth. Common perceptions for the aliens are:

• Aliens visiting earth, openly or covertly.
• Humans encountering aliens in space or on other planets.
• Aliens making non-physical contact with humans (e.g. radio, telepathy).
• Stories about aliens with no reference to humans.

Alien portrayed as a negative character which purpose is to destroy our planet as his role in many movies shows that they are aggressive, antagonistic or conniving, maybe because our people are hero who will save the earth from these villains.

The stories are all about that human being destroy the earth and God send these aliens to protect earth from human being or human being is weak than these aliens so they want to take over earth I think this is a more popular script which have the potential to sell and as it is a sellable product this idea is famous.

“One of the most influential early examples of aliens in pop culture was HG Wells’ War of the Worlds (1898) which popularized the notion that advanced, malevolent aliens could invade the earth. The Orson Welles radio adaptation in 1938 is one of the most infamous episodes in alien story-telling (many people believed a real alien invasion was underway). With the advent of film special effects, aliens found a new audience in cinemas. Numerous B-grade movies through the 1950s included alien creatures. These aliens were often lizard-like, while having a general human form (for obvious practical reasons)”.

New technology increased the scope of alien in cinema and Television industry; aliens have been essential elements of science fiction displays such as Doctor Who and Star Trek. Economical and practical boundaries forced most aliens to approximately human procedure but the advancement of the computer created special effects has created more possibilities for mysterious aliens.

Alien in Real Life:

The Milky Way has around 100 billion (1011) star systems that could conceivably host intelligent life under our current assumptions. An estimate of 100,000 (105) active civilizations in the galaxy would mean one per million star systems. At the exponential rate of growth in signal processing, researchers will have examined one million candidates by around 2034, bringing the odds of a discovery into the probable. Adding or removing a zero from the estimate of the number of civilizations out there merely adds or subtracts six years from the estimate, respectively, since that’s how long it takes to expand our search proportionally. See you in 2040, aliens.[1]

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/615680/alien-movie-agents-video-Men-in-Black-footage-UFO-United-states#t=6s (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

• List the traits associated with humans and those associated with aliens.
• Aggressiveness
• Explorer
• Viral and Bacterial Immunity
• They won’t eat humans
• Impersonal killer
• Not giant insects
• Super intelligent
• Non-human

Who do you think of when you picture a “human”?

Human is civilized sophisticated knowledgeable with good memory, a social animal, protective, aggressive, expressive, speaking, acting and reacting, creature. Human is having no race, no color, no sect but the personal emotions about land, personal identity and nationalism,

5) Now as a group, explain what you learned from this exercise.

God did not create anything out of purpose, if there is alien exist there will be some reason too what we should do is to give space to the alien from earth and the alien from the other lands as it is a fact that to whom we think these are aliens actually they are participating in our society and sharing our environment. There is a need to accept with whole hardheartedly and promote peace and prosperity.

References:

[1] http://time.com/alien-life/

Edited by Ali Almarzooqi on Jul 12 at 3:32pm

week 3

Zone One was a really interesting read and it was very unlike any novel I had read before. One aspect of the book that was actually very confusing for me yet intriguing lied in Whitehead’s narration of the story. The narrator kept switching between past and present, inserting flashbacks into the narrative of the three days in which this novel is set. The flashbacks become so frequent and so well entwined into the story that it almost blurred the lines between past and present for me as a reader. It was difficult for me to keep up with but it also may have been a tool that Whitehead uses to emphasize the great significance of the past. Furthermore, Whitehead uses the acronym PASD to refer to Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, or the mental and physical effects that were caused by the Last Night (the apocalypse). This acronym sounds like the word “past” further emphasizing the significance of the past and it’s effects on Spitz.

also the question that i assigned you to do this one For this discussion board assignment, please locate an article about the writer Colson Whitehead or his novel, Zone One. mr genius

1. Share a link to the article or a PDF with your discussion post.

2. Summarize the article and share its main points with the class.

3. Make connections if you can to Zone One.

As you continue to read Whitehead’s novel, consider how it fits in or doesn’t fit with famous zombie movies or TV shows.

Please watch George R. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. (Click on the title to go to the full film on YouTube.)

In an original discussion board post, please analyze Whitehead and Romero’s texts against each other. As you read Zone One, you learn that Mark Spitz is an African American man. Ben, the hero of Romero’s film is also a black man. Casting Duane Jones as Ben was a revolutionary move when the film was made and released in 1968.

Consider how race operates in each of these texts.

and this is someone;s answer

In 1968 it was very rare to find the protagonist of a film to be black. In George R. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Ben, the protagonist and albeit hero of the film, is portrayed by a black actor. Watching the film, however, there are no overt mentions of his race. It seemed like the film did not intend to strongly comment or focus on race but it did. Ben, played by Duane Jones, is portrayed as an average man, trying to survive in a life-threatening situation. This casting was very significant at the time because it was rare to find many black actors in popular films, let alone a black protagonist and hero. It began to normalize black actors in these roles and promoted a more multicultural, multiracial, accepting society. There are racial undertones in this film, such as Ben’s encounters with Barbra, a hysterical white woman he saves and holds up in a house with, trying to survive. He is never portrayed as acting inappropriately towards Barbra where I’m sure many of the audience members, especially in 1968, expected a sexual advance from Ben or encounter between the two. I was, however, taken aback when Ben slapped Barbra, granted it was after she slapped him first, and it made me wonder how that scene was received when it was released in 1968. It was probably very controversial and offensive to some, although I was not offended, and I believe if it had been a white man slapping Barbra instead, it would have been received differently.

What I found interesting is that Ben is portrayed as the most intelligent, strongest, most rational, and most able to survive out of all the people trapped in the house. In fact, he is the one who takes the role of the leader, coming up with plans to get everybody out of the house, taking initiative to board up the house and even has the courage to run outside into the mob of zombies to get the car to the gas pump. He risks his life to help others, unlike everybody in the house except Tom, and does not let his emotions cloud his judgment. Throughout the night, one by one, everyone in the house dies – Tom and his wife in a fiery car explosion, Harry is shot by Ben for trying to kill him, Harry’s wife is killed by their zombie daughter, Barbra is eaten alive – except Ben. Ben is the only one to survive the night of the living dead. The next morning, police and government agents are sweeping the area, wiping out all zombies so it is safe for the human population again. When Ben hears the police arrive, he comes out of the cellar, looks out the window upstairs, and is shot in the head.

I think that Ben’s death is significant because usually the hero of the film lives, even in horror films where many of the main characters die. One that comes to mind is the 2017 film, Get Out, for example. Up until the very ending, the audience believes that Ben will survive, and being shot by the police is actually a very significant image, especially in modern times where police brutality and targeting of blacks or minorities is so common. This ending makes me wonder if Ben had been a white man, if the police would have hesitated to make sure he was a zombie before shooting.

In Colson Whitehead’s novel Zone One, race is not an obvious theme of the book until the very end. Mark Spitz, the protagonist, is a black man but it is not revealed to the reader until close to the end of the book. I assumed that Mark would be black based on what we have been studying in class, but that revelation was still significant to me because it gave light to many of the things he had described about his personality and his past. For example, the narrator revealed that Mark had always excelled at the “American Checklist”, however, he seemed to appear more average than he actually was. Throughout the novel, Mark proves himself to be smart and strong; to survive the Last Night, one had to be. Furthermore, he made the decision to be a sweeper, putting himself in more danger, but gaining a more fulfilling and interesting life. The way the narrator spoke about Mark made him seem heroic and promising, not just average. However, the way he was treated in life, as indicated by flashbacks, not excelling in school but not failing, not being picked first for sports but not last, not standing out but not being invisible either, would indicate he was nothing special, certainly not heroic.

After the Last Night, society has to rebuild itself and Buffalo sends sweepers to Manhattan to clear the island of skels, Mark Spitz being one of them. Throughout the book, there are no mentions of race up until the reader learns how Mark got the name “Mark Spitz”, and that he is black. There are also no indications that Gary and Kaitlyn, or the Lieutenant or anyone else he encounters treats him any differently because of his race. In the post-apocalyptic world that Mark Spitz is now living in, it seems as if those racial biases and the social norms regarding race have been broken down completely. Towards the end of the novel, Mark talks about how the apocalypse has been freeing to those who felt constrained in society; to murderers and rapists, yes, but to those who were timid and those who could not follow their dreams.

I believe that this is one of the most significant places where the commentary on race lies in Whitehead’s novel. Upon learning that Mark Spitz is black, it makes sense that he would feel restricted or constrained in modern society. Although, by law, black and whites are equal, we all know that is not how modern society operates. Blacks are constantly disregarded, stereotyped, and treated less than because of their skin color. In this post-apocalyptic world that Mark finds himself in, the societal norms have been broken due to this mass destruction of the human population. This suddenly becomes a world where Mark is free to thrive and does not have to worry about the realities of being a black man in society.

she just posted that maybe you will need it

Hi All,

One important aspect of the first six pages that I hope everyone can see is how Whitehead uses diction to indicate the horror genre. Many of his word choices signal death, corpses, decay, all while describing a luxury high-rise and an young boy’s obsession with technology. It is almost as if the boy and the lifestyle he is describing are already in some ways zombified.

P.A.S.D is of course a riff on “past” and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is commonly associated with veterans and abuse survivors. Why do you think Whitehead invents this term for the survivors of a zombie apocalypse? What are the symptoms associated with this disorder?

Please take a close look at references to P.A.S.D. in the novel, particularly on pages, 53 to 55, 187 to 188. There will be a question on the exam that asks you to consider how Mark Spitz’s symptoms manifest themselves and how you interpret this disorder. Does it correspond with you you imagine survivors coping, or not coping, with all that they went through on the Last Night and the days, weeks, months, that followed the end of normalcy?

please read everything carefully and ask me if there is something that you did not know