Christal Selmeyer

Literary Analysis:

I chose to read David Foster Wallace’s short story The Depressed Person for this assignment. I felt as though this story captured much of the same emotion that I am trying to portray throughout my own memoir revisiting the death of my grandpa; my close friend. The months preceding the death of my grandpa were months in which I, myself, experienced a variation of depression. I think that discussing feelings that come along with a topic such as death or depression are feelings that are heavy and sometimes difficult to find a way to get across while ensuring the author is enjoying the story rather than simply being pained by reading its words. David Foster Wallace did an incredible job of portraying the emotion of the depressed woman throughout the emotionally charged language he used in this text.

            As we discussed in past classes, language is a crucial element of a story; particularly in a memoir where the goal is to truly allow the reader to peek into your emotions and to feel the feelings the character felt in that concrete instance. DFW does an incredible job of using descriptive language to truly allow the reader to understand what is happening.

            Concrete instances have been another topic amongst our conversations in class. DFW does an excellent job of writing in concrete instances. For example, DFW opens the piece by discussing what might have made the depressed person the way that she is. Each reason is defined in its own concrete instance. When the depressed person was young, her parents had divorced. I appreciated that the moment was examined thoroughly in its own moment. I like that this story, in my mind, was kind of divided throughout concrete instance, each moment in her history being its very own concrete instance. Some moments, such as the moment in which she describes her boarding school experiences, are given more explanation and detail through different amounts of description, but I truly feel as though they are each beautifully portrayed in their own way.

            DFW used footnotes throughout this text, which while it is not something I will use throughout my own piece, I thought it was an incredibly interesting way to add description to the story. It makes you feel as though you are looking at the text through a telescope; zooming in on certain instances even more so than others. I really like the use of the footnotes to feel completely immersed into the text.

            I hope to revise my work to be more modeled after DFW’s. I really enjoy his style of writing and find it to be extremely effective. DFW has an uncanny ability to place the reader directly into the moment. While reading this text, I was able to feel the same emotions that the depressed person was experiencing and because of that, I felt as though I could analyze more deeply the meaning of the text. I hope that readers, while examining my own memoir, will be able to do the same thing. I hope that they will identify the concrete instances that are being enhanced by strong and emotional language to truly place themselves in the moment and understand the heartbreaking beauty of watching a person become a soul and a lifeless body.

           

Structural Analysis:

Throughout my memoir, I have chosen to employ the method of curiosity. This method is structured in a way in which the author places a captivating moment in the beginning of a text but doesn’t place the details surrounding the event immediately after; but rather they place them later in the text. This structure is intended to captivate the reader.

I find this to be the most appealing setup for the story I am trying to convey to my readers. In the beginning of my story, I am writing about a moment in time in which I received a phone call that changed my life. I discuss a moment in which I felt an intense emotion and I talk about the way in which I reacted to having received said call. I fail to mention, however, the truth meaning of the call and the events leading up to and following the call. I think that by captivating the reader early on, they will be more encouraged to continue reading, allowing the reader to truly understand the underlying meaning written in the text.

Each text I have ever worked on has presented its own set of problems and challenges. In writing this memoir,  I found it to be a bit difficult to zoom in on just one instance in my life in order to convey a situation that changed the person that I am; my character. Once I decided on the story that I would write, a new challenge reared its head. I was a little worried about how I would keep a reader interested in my story while not completely depressing them. I needed to make an extremely sad and somber moment in my past artistic and nearly poetic. I found relief in the use of this structure. By breaking my story up into many concrete instances and placing an important one in the front, I was able to tell the beginning of a sad story and then ease the reader in to the rest of the upsetting details. All in all, I think using this structure allowed my story to find a beautiful flow.


David Perry's Ted Talk

In David's Ted Talk, the severity in which he spoke of many video game addictions blew my mind. I was amazed listening to the stories of people who felt as though the line between gaming and reality was one that consisted of a large gray area. I think the impacts David speaks about having on regular gamers was an interesting one. For example, I thought it was really interesting when he said, "From an early age I learned to invest myself emotionally in what unfolded before me on screen. Today, after 20 years of watching TV geared to make me emotional, even a decent insurance commercial can bring tears to my eyes." I feel as though this quote has an interesting outlook on the way he feels people connect with video games. Even more than the current, I was amazed by what David explained might soon be the new generation of video games. More lush, more complex. I think it will be interesting to see how the progression of video games impacts the way that people view their own realities. If already we see such a strong connection, what will happen in ten years?

Video Games and Allegory

In a world where technology is ever-changing and quickly evolving, video games have come quite a way from where they began. With vivid imagery and incredibly intense story lines, I think that now, more than ever, video games are impacting the gamers of our society and our society as a whole. In reading Wark’s piece about viewing video games a allegories in society, I think he did a wonderful job of arguing that video games, such as The Sims, can indeed be considered an allegories. They have a deeper meaning in our society than simply being used for entertainment purposes.

Wark discusses how allegory is not the only viewpoint to use when looking at video games. The idea that video games can also be viewed as algorithms is discussed. I found this to be really interesting. When looking at an analyzing an algorithm, it becomes a process of giving each value in the problem a deeper meaning. By understanding an algorithm, it becomes possible to understand the result that comes of the problem. We can do this same thing with video games. We, as gamers, have the ability to pick apart the aspects of the video games that we play. By understanding what is being represented in the different aspects of the game, we can understand the deeper meaning that it is trying to convey to its players.

The idea of consumerism is really interesting. Wark states, “Perhaps a game like The Sims could be a parody of everyday life in ‘consumer society’. Benjamin and his friends dream of things. Things make them happy. They find a nice sofa so much more relaxing than a cheap one.” This is so interesting! This is the exact link between gaming and real life. Real life problems are implemented into games. It all goes back to having the ability to provide a value for different aspects of the game. By understanding why the Sims are gaining happiness through buying materialistic things, having jobs that pay more money: this is the way humans are! The game almost mocks human nature in a way that could make a gamer interested in exploring the why of the game. And why do gamers become addicted to things such as this?

The Sims speaks a message to society: consumerism, algorithms and so much more. Video games are definitely allegories that explain society, gamers just have to stop and add values to the components to equate the bigger picture. 

Carl Jung's Dream Interpretation

I found this text to be really interesting. Carl Jung makes some excellent points regarding dream interpretation. In the beginning, Jung explains why he thinks dreams could contain a deeper meaning. He says, “The dream is a fragment of involuntary psychic activity,just conscious enough to be reproducible in the waking state. Of all psychic phenomena the dream presents perhaps the largest number of “irrational” factors.”I think that this has an interesting connection to choosing a video game to play. I think choosing the type of video game that we like is a subconscious decision. Much like we don’t always choose what we dream, but find that we often dream of things related to our lives, we choose video games about subjects that we like. Sometimes, we think we are choosing something that is completely outside of our norm, and the game is full of completely irrational things. These could include war like activity, violent animals, violence, etc.

Jung then goes on to detail different ways that dreams can be interpreted. I think that we can apply these to the ways in which we will interpret the video games we choose to play. I especially liked when he discussed trying to relate the events in the dream (video game) to events that have taken place in the past. I think this is an interesting way to try to find the meaning of an event. What charged the event in the past? What led up to the event? What was the outcome of the event? You can then take these answers and apply them to the events taking place in your life or within society.

I was really interested in reading about Carl Jung’s explanation of what are referred to as big dreams and small dreams; big dreams being significant dreams that people remember and small dreams being more easily forgotten. He references the importance of large dreams by saying, “I have examined many such dreams, and often found in them a peculiarity which distinguishes them from other dreams: they contain symbolical images which we also come across in the mental history of mankind.”  I find this interesting because these are large concepts that are regularly found in video games. After researching the beginnings of this project, I find myself to be completely in line with that idea. Big dreams, popular video games, they do speak a bigger message to both my own life and society.

It will be interesting to keep all of these things in mind while completing project 4. 

Review of Student Works

After reviewing the student samples provided for Project 4, I decided to compare two projects that seemed to be the most different. Sarah Hicklin chose to use the platform Blogspot. Tyler Anthony decided to present his information in the form of a website. Each student did an excellent job conveying the information they felt was most important, but each student went about doing so in a different way. Here I would like to analyze the ways in which they communicated their findings about video games and their deeper meanings to their audiences. The idea of the project was to determine whether or not video games could hold a deeper meaning according to dream interpretations.

Sarah Hicklin displayed her findings through a blog post on blogspot. I like this because I feel as though it is something that could be more easily stumbled upon than a wix site. She went further to post a prezi presentation. I personally love prezi. I love that Sarah chose to present the information in this way. Prezi is visually stimulating. She did an excellent job of incorporating graphics, videos, and text evidence to support the arguments that she made throughout her research. I also really appreciated that Sarah included all of the research that was involved with creating her presentation. It really added credibility and great evidence that she chose to add her dream journal in her final findings.

Sarah did a wonderful job with her findings. The only downfall, I would say, to her final project would be in the part I found most interesting. While prezi is a great way to present information to a crowd or a group, I sometimes feel prezi make it difficult to pinpoint information. For example, if I was reviewing a specific game that Sarah played and wanted to know how it pertained to society, it is difficult to go through her prezi to locate the information.

Tyler decided to create a webpage to display his findings. I really enjoyed looking through his project. It was visually appealing, but it lacked in graphics. It’s nice to see pictures of the game or videos of the game play; it adds credibility. This is something I side with Sarah on and hope to include in my own project. Tyler did a great job of conveying his findings through words. The tabs on his website were clearly named and defined what could be found within the tab.

Overall, I preferred Sarah’s site, visually. While they both did an excellent job answering the overarching question of whether or not video games truly have a deeper meaning in our lives or society, the blog post and prezi kept my attention and I learned a lot! 

For my own project, I have decided to play Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag


March 11; Critique Assignment

I was really impressed by both of the websites that we were assigned to look over for this assignment. Overall, I thought they both did an awesome job of conveying the needed information and answering the overarching questions of the assignment. I thought that each student recorded their experiences very thoroughly and presented the information in a way that was very visually appealing. Each site was organized really well and while they were very different, they were both great examples of what this project should look like. They also did a great job of helping me realize how different each project truly has the potential to look!

I would like to begin by exploring Elza’s work on her wix site. Skyrim seems to have been the perfect choice. The narratives and storylines that she provided throughout her project really did an excellent job of helping her to explain her argument regarding the question of how video games can explain things about not only us but society, as well. Elza’s work is very visually stimulating to me. I really like the background that she chose. It feels very mystical, where I think is a good fit for this project. I really appreciated that Elza referenced the time she spent playing video games often and provided images to support the arguments that she was making. Her use of pictures really made me feel like I understood what she was doing in her gaming and understood why she was making the arguments that she was.

Elza did an excellent job of organizing her site. One of my favorite parts of her website was the way on each page she placed the text on one side and the sources on the same page to the right side. Instead of needing to reference a works cited page or a sources page, all I had to do was glance over. This, in my opinion, added a ton of credibility. Something I also like about Elza’s page was the fact that instead of separating her site by games like most people, she instead separated her tabs by the topic she would be discussing. She would then explore each game within the tab. I liked that because I was able to see clearer links between the games.

Grayson also did an awesome job. I really, really, really appreciated the audio that Grayson included. It made the project feel a lot more personal and in turn made me a lot more receptive to the message being conveyed to me (the audience). I would have liked to have seen more images. With the white background, it would have been nice to have been a bit more stimulated visually. Overall, it was an awesome project and he did an excellent job arguing his positions, I would have liked to have seen a little more visually.

I hope that the work I produce will be on the same level as the examples we have looked at so far. I think I have seen great examples and have discovered aspects of this project that I would love to tie into mine.  


NEW:

The article that we conducted  a close reading for was pretty interesting. In the opening of the article, how games have changed on a technological basis was discussed. I thought it was really interesting that in the grand scheme of things, games have pretty much stayed the same. Games have always offered the option to play against others or for the player to play against himself or herself. While the platforms have become bigger overtime, the overall goals of the game have pretty much stayed the same. I enjoyed that the article talked about the dynamics of game play. I thought that there were a lot of great points made regarding why people play games. It’s been a constant overtime that people look to build trusting relationships in the games that they play with the players they choose to play with. By working with other gamers around you, it makes it possible for you to work towards a bigger goal. A team is always more productive than an individual.

I think that by reading this article, it has helped me to better understand why my game, Assassins Creed IV, is designed the way that it was. My game was actually created very similarly to World of Warcraft, the game that this article discussed. I was able to take the examples placed in the article and apply them to my own game. I really related with the whole idea of play space. While once a player has killed beasts they disappear, the intimacy of the space really allows you to understand what’s going on. Also, you have options regarding who to assassinate in the game. You have to ethically decide who to kill in order to advance yourself. If you choose to kill the good guy, it’s important that you understand while it might better you, you will end a lot of relationships that could have been beneficial in the long run.