For those of you who missed this round of presentations, you missed a very interesting mind game. Want to see why it was so entertaining??
The Mathematics Of ...
TAKE A TEST
Follow the instructions! NO PEEKING AHEAD! Do the following exercise, guaranteed to raise an eyebrow. There's no trick or surprise. Just follow these instructions, and answer the questions one at a time and as quickly as you can!
Think of a number from 1 to 10
Multiply that number by 9
If the number is a 2-digit number, add the digits together
Now subtract 5
Determine which letter in the alphabet corresponds to the number you ended up with (example: 1=a, 2=b, 3=c,etc.)
Think of a country that starts with that letter
Remember the last letter of the name of that country
Think of the name of an animal that starts with that letter
Remember the last letter in the name of that animal
Think of the name of a fruit that starts with that letter
Are you thinking of a Kangaroo in Denmark eating an Orange?
The Magus by John Fowler is filled with mythology. Not only are some of the characters based off of mythological gods but also the story itself intertwines with the theory of the myths. The Main character Nicholas Urfe meets the strange but interesting Maurice Conchis while he is teaching in Greece. This meeting, though in the beginning is believed to be by chance, takes Nicholas’ life and turns it around and takes him through a life changing reality trip. Throughout his visits to the island Bouranis, where Conchis lives, Nicholas meets many of the characters that Conchis has at his house to take Nicholas on his journey. This journey is all about finding the truth about the inner self and attempting to destroy the monster lurking within his own consciousness. It is also a perfect example of the hero pattern, you will see this through: separation, initiation, and transformation.
If you think about the way in which the whole story began Nicholas’s character was very selfish, greedy and hopeless. He was a womanizer like most of the Greek gods, and the women in the story fell victim to his own selfish cravings. He used them to fill his inner desire because he could not handle his own feelings and emotions otherwise. This act is similar to that of Zeus the Greek god who is known as the “father of the gods and men,” Zeus was known for changing forms and seducing women. For Nicholas women were just there for a piece of happiness rather then as a companion for life. This is the nature of freedom and the beginning of a separation. Maurice Conchis set boundaries and guides for Nicholas to get through the maze; he confused his mind and questioned truth. The gods were notorious for changing things, mostly their appearance, but they did have their minds set to get what they so desired.
What then is desire? It can come in the form of love, infatuation, craving and lust. Nicholas fell “in love” with the actress who played Lily, Julie and then a doctor during the trial. This woman deceived him into thinking that she was on his side then she would change and say that he didn’t trust her. She made him believe that he was supposed to help her escape, but at the same time she also said that she loved Conchis because he had helped her. She is a mirror of Nicholas himself. His inner self could not understand what this game was all about but he was hooked by it and continued to come back and play. Even in mythology the heroes go through trials that initiate them into the role of a hero and through these trials they change into a new and better person, however if they chose not to learn from their experience they are doomed to repeat it until they do find a way out. This is how our character makes it out of the game set before him. He is given different paths and choices to make and they continue to put them in front of him until he can no longer continue. At the end of the trial that Conchis puts on for Nicholas he mentions the Othello situation. More specifically he says, “That we have no choice of play or role. It is always Othello. To be is, immutably, to be Iago” (Fowles, 531).
~ “In Othello, it is Iago who manipulates all other characters at will, controlling their movements and trapping them in an intricate net of lies. He achieves this by getting close to all characters and playing on their weaknesses while they refer to him as "honest" Iago, thus furthering his control over the characters” (Wikipedia*).
This is exactly what Conchis did to Nicholas and then in return Nicholas did the same thing. They would glean information from the other characters and then use it against each other and tell the other what they wanted them to know and left them at that until another character stepped out and said something about it. This whole sneaky game is the downfall of a hero. So many of the stories about the gods are full of deception and trickery. Mothers would trick children into killing the father, they would spy on others to find the mystery of their actions, and they would change form to trick women. The Magus explores all of these realms through the tricks and unraveling of each one of the players. Nicholas has to deal with the confusion of knowing whether Julie/ Lily is really on his side, which turns on him in the end because she is just a player in the game. He deals with the grief of losing Alison to her “suicide” and then he has to get over his guilt. These trials are what change him and transform him. After the trial and getting terminated from the school he returns to London and finds Alison still alive and apart of the whole scheme. She doesn’t seem to believe that he has changed at all and rightly so because of his deception.
As the reader we are not given a happy ending or even a conclusive ending. We are left dangling, wondering if Alison forgives him one more time or if she finally realizes Nicholas is a lost cause. The funny thing is, the reader actually does know the ending of the story. We have all been here before we just have to remember. We have heard this story a thousand times: boy meets girl, boy pushes girl away, boy learns a valuable lesson, boy begs girl back. You can even reverse the roles and say that the girl takes the boy for granted and asks him to forgive her. Everyday a mythological story is retold. We never seem to learn that we just replay the scenes the gods love the most. Dromenon, “ the thing that is done, drama.” This is life, we construct the plot without realizing it and we are the actors in our own story. We befriend the people that fulfill the roles we want in our life, we date the love that we most want or feel we are worthy of, and we betray the people that get in the way of our plans. People have been doomed to follow this pattern since we lost contact with the gods. Now we just have to put up with it. We survive our trials or we give up our lives because it is to detrimental to our soul. The Magus is an important text to understand the roles we play ourselves, we don’t like to admit playing the role of Nicholas Urfe, but we all end up in that situation one way or another. This is the result of being deceitful, greedy, and self-absorbed. The only way to atone for selfish acts is to purify, out with the old in with the new and a new cycle begins from separation> initiation> metamorphosis.
I have to say I was very entertained by the performance on December 6th 2011. I was able to watch and listen to fellow classmates and a well loved professor dedicate the evening to the birthday of the King James Bible and Shakespeare's Tempest. I found it specifically entertaining when Dr. Sexson and Joel battled it out about version. Dr. Sexson with the King James version naturally and Joel with a modern nontraditional version. They argued it out and it just shows how little our generation's appreciation for great literature really is. Most times we look at poetry or writing that has "thine" "thou" and "shalt nots" in it and turn it away. This is a fairly common mistake that young people make. They seem to think that if they cannot immediately understand it that it is not worth their time. This was also expressed during our individual presentations on Tuesday when Andrew said that because he was in engineering that he didn't read books "like that". Such is the loss of young minds. If you do not develop your mind to understand the language in the Old English literature how can you appreciate any book of today. In my creative writing class with Ben Leubner we explored differing variations of poetry and some of it is very difficult to write and some of it has no form at all. Just having to have to write like that helps open your mind to the older classical literature. Seeing as writing and reading in the classical style is so "difficult" for this generation it is as if we have to learn a new variation of language. "You taught me language, and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language!" - William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1.2
