Final English Project

Genres:

Imagination. Lost, but not forgotten

Imagination was born into a grand mansion at the beginning of time. As time began to tick, all imagination could do was stare in wonder of the shapes and lights he saw. Without any idea of what anything could be or should be, Imagination started to dream. He saw bright, valiant  colors and dark, menacing shadows in all things. Even though everything was foreign and unknown to Imagination, he built his own ideas of what things were intended to be. When Imagination began to walk, he learned to roam. He discovered the house full of forgotten nooks and closed rooms waiting to be opened. Nooks became the homes of magical beasts and every closed door had a unseen world behind it.

The Shapes and lights turned into characters and their stories. Fire breathing giants arose, chasing after a lone black horse and his silver clad hero with Imagination following close behind, bouncing to keep up. Witches were found casting bubbling clouds of spells over boiling cauldrons when inhabiting the darkest closets. Their goblin henchmen chased imagination, bouncing down the steps and climbing over one another while bewitched trees tapped on the windows at night. But the grandest spectacle that Imagination ever witnessed was the epic that would ensue at nine o’clock when bedtime was announced and thick gray rain clouds were rolling in.

As soon as the lights were turned out, the door to the room closed, Imagination settled into to the blankets and his eyes closed, the faint pitter-patter of rain would assault the window pane. Out of the faint rain and black night, Imagination could hear his friends approaching. Pulling from all the mystery, adventure, magic, and fantasy Imagination had seen before, he could create his own worlds and magnificent tales. Vast armies assembled on the ridges of mountains, fragile ships bobbing in the oceans of a hurricane, dragons soaring above the clouds with their scales glistening in the sun, or a group of explorers boarding a black and white rocket destined for the farthest reaches of space.

However, these adventures with explorers or the grand clashes of knights and dragons could not last forever. Imagination tried to hold on for as long as he could. With each passing year, the house around him had more doors close, more nooks fade away. No longer did the dragon chase a knight down the hallway or did goblins roll down the stairs. Closets became places where shoes and coats were stored, no longer dens for plotting witches. Imagination had long days that were filled with other forms of entertainment. He would laugh with friends and exercise afterwards. After falling into bed, exhausted and defeated from another long day, closing his eyes and turning out the light, out of the darkness he could feel the drumming of a thousand boots, the flapping of gigantic wings, and a silent smile broke Imagination’s face.

Reality. All around but not inside.

Reality was born into a grand mansion at the beginning of time. As time began to tick, all Reality could do was stare in wonder of the shapes and the lights he saw. Without any idea of what anything could be or should be, Reality listened and learned. He spent the beginning of his life wide eyed and quiet, soaking in all that he heard and all he saw. This made his favorite activity to sit in the corner and listen to what everyone said and then to stare out the attic window once he had heard everything they were to say. Everything he heard and everything he saw became a filed new addition to his memory to be used at another time.

As Reality sat in the window, the clouds drifting by and the birds singing songs in the trees next door, Reality was able to observe and ponder the meaning of everything he saw. The robin that sang its songs everyday, the man in the green jump suit who walked ten dogs at a time, and the explosion of orange and red that dominated the sky as the sun fell. All of these things held Reality’s curiosity but not his passion. Reality was pleased with learning new things, the names of animals and the facts out of his fact books, but there was no adventure, no interaction that Reality longed for. There was no expedition, no discovery, only the events that he had read about in his books of explorers discovering the North Pole or a long lost pirate shipwreck.

The lack of adventure and excitement made Reality’s first years difficult. He spent the majority of his time staring out the window of his attic and the remainder reading books. He was far removed from the world around him, observing and learning but never content. The books were an outlet for sometime. They were where he found new facts and names that were from far away places. The books contained the names of massive mountains or that of the largest creatures in the world, past and present. Eventually though, the names of birds repeated a dozen times, the same old wrinkled pictures of spiders and caterpillars, the dusty ancient dictionary that Reality had been pouring over for years were no longer endurable.

Reality’s mother made him leave his window that day. She grabbed his backpack and opened the towering front door to push Reality out. Stepping outside, Reality saw a peculiar sight. Another boy, just across the grass, that looked like him. He was the same height, also had a backpack twice the size of his body, and being followed close behind by his mother. Reality hobbled over to the boy and introduced himself. The boy did the same, smiling, asking if Reality knew how to spell his name. Reality answered matter-of-factly that he sure did, shooting back if the boy knew what a blue whale was.

That was when Reality felt the the longing for interaction smolder and disappear from his chest. He had found what he was looking for. A friend to share and experience life with. Reality cracked a wide grin and with a warmth in his chest, he and his new friend walked to kindergarten with their mothers trailing close behind.

Black, White, Splashing Red by Ryan Knohl

Dress in black and white

Two performers stand center stage

Just a splash of red in the night

Motionless under a blinding light

Each steps forward, each a talented mage

Dressed in black and white

The crowd blurs from sight

Fire and smoke form a cage

Just splash of red in the night

Sparks fly as the two excite

Flames lick to charcoal the page

Dressed in black and white

One claps, a thunder’s light

The other collapses under their rage

Just a splash of red in the night

The victor dashes into the night

One left slumped on stage

Dressed in black and white

Just a splash of red in the night

Ryan Knohl

May 15th, 2015

Expository Essay

Romano, AP English

We Fear What We Do Not Know

Humans, as a species, have struggled with the unknown for their entire existence. For as long as humanity has existed, so has the desire to understand and conquer that unknown. The ancient Greeks found their explanations for the world around them in imagination and in their fantasy. They created a history of the universe based on gods who controlled the world around them like Zeus and Poseidon controlling the sky and the ocean. Human use of imagination and fantasy to explain and interact with the world was then replaced by science. Starting with the Scientific Revolution, science became the main focus of society as a means to prove the forces that acted on the environment and affected Human life.

The Scientific Revolution began in the 16th century with Galileo challenging the Church’s view on the orbit of the planets. That marked the moment human intrigue shifted to emphasize the interactions in nature proved by science as imagination had done before. Science proved that Zeus and Poseidon do not exist to create lightning and hurricanes, static in the atmosphere and pressure differentials do. Scientists replaced old theories of understanding with tested new ones. Since the start of the Scientific Revolution, humans have explained sickness, natural disasters, and have begun tackling the questions of the stars while Imagination and fantasy proceeded to fade away from the forefront of human understanding.Yet they have remained a cornerstone of Human understanding and interaction with the world.  

Stories of fantastical adventure and the impossible are still the most entertaining and popular practices that humans spend their energy on. In 2014 Americans spent 10.6 billion dollars on movie attendance with movies like Transformers: Age of Extinction and The Lego Movie making 250 billion and 229 billion respectively in profits (MPAA). Fantastic conflicts and expression of emotion through made up characters and stories add excitement to human lives. Movies are only one form of interaction that humans have with their environment through imagination. Painting, writing, singing, any form of creativity are ways that Humans use imagination to interact with their environment and express emotion.

Human fascination with the unknown has created the desire to express the impossible with fantastic stories and thereby creating the desire to dream outside of reality.  In the book The Night Circus written by Erin Morgenstern, the distinction between reality and the imagination is portrayed through a travelling circus. The performers that live within the circus are capable of magic and live extraordinary, gifted lives, but the visitors that attend the circus live trivial ones without any knowledge of magic. However, this difference is not necessary because the visitors do not question a performer's’ impossible tricks and protect their division between reality and imagination. When Celia, the magician protagonist, confronts a frequent visitor on the circus’ impossible and magical roots, he responds “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.” (Morgenstern, 183)

It is the necessary interaction with the light and the dark through the lense of human imagination that derives human understanding and interaction. C. S. Lewis believed that “reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” (Hoyler, 1) Imagination is the means to which Humans find intrigue and interest in the world. By Lewis’ definition, Imagination is the tool that has allowed Humans to derive meaning from nature, to explore the world, and is still responsible for pushing the boundary on Human understanding. With the ideas of gods like Zeus and Poseidon Humans stole some control of the world by labeling it with meaning. As the human imagination grew with the influence of science and the creation of new stories the potential for “what if” is pushed further. Human understanding multiplied exponentially as people derived the forces of nature and then left the planet for the first time. Without imagination for the impossible and the creation of fantastic stories, Humanity would lack the capability to elevate its position and conquer the unknown.

Bibliography

1. Theatrical Market Statistics. Motion Picture Association of America, 2013. Web. 15 May 2015.
2. Soergel, Philip. “The Scientific Revolution and Philosophical Rationalism.” Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: The Age of the Baroque and Enlightenment. (2004) 288-296. Galebooks. Web. 15 May 2015.   
3. Morgenstern, Erin. The Night Circus. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Print.

4. Holyer, Robert. C.S. LEWIS ON THE EPISTEMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE IMAGINATION. Pennsylvania: Penn State University, 1991. Web. 17 May 2015.

A definition of black and white and the grey in between.

Reality is defined by “a natural state of things as they actually exist” or “the state and quality of having existence or substance”. Imagination is defined as “the ability to form new images and sensations through the mind without the use of the sense”. One is an adjective and one is a noun. Even though they seem to be contrasting figures, their similarity is what gives them power when put in the right hands.

The distinctions between the two are bold. Reality involves the world in the physical elements that exist as well as the events of the past that have been labeled and categorized in history. This makes reality a physical and definite being. In reality the cup is half full of liquid and placed on the desk. The cup is bound by logical and possible phenomenon. Imagination on the other hand is all the ideas, moments, substances, and possibilities that humans have created within themselves. Imagination does not occupy a single time because it is possible for people to go back and alter the past within their imagination. Imagination does not involve definite matters either because at any moment someone can change one object into another or alter one picture with an added/ removed detail. That same cup on the desk could be transformed to be a cup made of water half full of air. It is not bound by the logical or the possible.

What imagination and reality have in common is that the two occupy the same plane when Humans interact with them. Humans possess the ability to take their imagination and turn it into reality. This capability to think beyond the present and explore possible outcomes before they happen is what gives us our humanity. People do this their entire life while Artists do this for a living, but every child growing up has experienced it on another level.

Artists take their imagination and create with it. Then they translate those creations to canvas, to words, to actions and form reality. Their imaginations create a new form of reality that did not exist once before. They create an overlap in what was once undefined and an infinite possibility becomes real and definite.

The overlap is even more prevalent in young children and it is why the importance of understanding the interaction between imagination and reality is so important. A child growing up has the strongest imagination. They can turn sticks into Excalibur, they can build grand fortresses out of pillow cushions, and they can entertain themselves with anything they have to work with. This is because their imagination becomes their reality. When playing in this environment, when a child’s imagination is working to create substance and interaction, they are living that imaginative setting. The stick ceases to exist as a stick, it is Excalibur; The pillow cushion is no longer a pillow cushion, it is bricks for the walls. This transition from imagination to reality is flawless in a child’s mind and it is also the one place in the universe where the real and the impossible are able to exist together.

Dear Ms. Romano,

For my golden thread, the idea of “the light and the dark” is what jumped out at me after I had completed all of my genres. Something that I had not picked up on right away because I had confused it with a similar “white and black” scheme. The light and the dark embodies my genres’ positions on that of reality and imagination. As I fleshed out my expository essay I realised that what I had been arguing was that imagination had been one of the reasons why Humanity has become what it is. The desire to understand nature when it was impossible to do so led to the creation of Greek mythology and a sense of understanding. However, human imagination continued to push humanity to expand on what it knew; driving creativity and invention. Humans left Earth because someone wondered what it would be like to enter space. That single idea created the folklore and the stories that encouraged it thousands of years before, until one day, someone actually achieved that dream. It is a fascination with the unknown, the dark or the black, that allows for continued exploration as new ideas and possibilities are brought into the light. With my “Imagination” and “Reality” pieces, each one (specifically that of imagination) have a strong focus on the light and the dark. The boy derives his imagination from the dark and eventually reality takes over with the light but that sense of darkness and unknown remain. The same effect is seen in the poem but altered some. In the book The Night Circus, the performers all wear black and white on the outside while they live in bright color behind the curtain. In the poem, the two characters are dressed in black and white but the splash of red symbolizes the opposing perspective. For example, a group called the Jacques in the book are fanatic night circus visitors and they are distinguished by a burgundy article of clothing they wear each night to the circus. The idea of purpose in the unknown or having the dark influence the expansion of the light is the relationship I discovered between human imagination and reality. __Ryan Knohl, 2015

Magical Realism and The Night Circus

After continuing The Night Circus with the idea of magic as the focus and the ways that magic play a part in the roles of the characters' lives as well as the readers understanding, I believe that magical realism is the core of the novel and will be the core of my research. After a quick google search, I found that magical realism is, as rightly assumed "marvelous realism in literature, painting, and film that, while encompassing a range of subtly different concepts, share in common an acceptance of magic in the rational world." There is no doubt in my mind that this is the core of the The Night Circus and the events that take place within the Cirque des Reves. It is this relationship between the characters that are aware of the presence of magic, even if not directly responisble, such as Bailey, a young boy who befriends two of the younger performers in the circus and discovers their ability to see the past and to see the future, or Isobel, a tarrot card reader, who is not magical but still interacts with Marco on an intimate level. (Tarrot cards are a deck of cards that, when shuffled and arranged properly, they can reveal a person's future based on the cards turned over.) 

These characters know that there is something more going on than just circus acts and that plays into the magical realism of the circus. For example, one of the original memebers of the circus, Tarra, realized that the members of the circus had not become ill, had any injuries, or appeared to have aged since the circus' doors first opened. On the otherside of that are the characters that are responsible for the magic involved. Celia and Marco are using the circus as a way to test one another while also making the circus the grand event that it is. The chapters are filled with magical descriptions of characters entering into tents off the black and white outside setting, to be embraced by marvelous colors, like that of "charcoal-coated kittens and red embers". This creates another interesting phenomenon within the circus, the distinciton between the performers and the vistors, as well as this division in color and setting. 

The majority of the circus is designed to be a mixture of swirling silvers, striped whites and blacks that create this magical surreal enviornment. Then there is this opposite one that is hidden behind the white and black of sharp color. This Bright orange and burgandy is where the performers live. They also use it to disguise themselves while mingling with the crowds in between shows. When disguised in the these warm and bright colors, the performers are nearly invisible and can move through the crowd unnoticed. When Bailey returns to the circus he finds Poppet and Widget, two twins who are performing with dancing cats in contrasting snow white and midnight black outfits. When they are finished, the two put on brown overcoats with matching green scarves to compliment their firey red hair. 

The more I read, the more the competition is less of the focus. I keep noticing these subtitiles of color, interaction with the fantastical, and the impossible/magical that characters experience which seems to make the climax of this "competition' far off. For example, one of my favorite scenes was when Celia goes to visit a clock maker. When in his shop she sees a fantastic clock with curling silver orbs that match the planets laying on the table. Celia puts her hand on it and the gears within begin to realign and the springs tighten to start a faint ticking noise. All the while, the clock worker, Frederick, watchs and doesn't ask how she is able to do her tricks, saying"I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark." This could be the underlying principal of magic and magical realism, that we see but do not understand and yet do not investigate for fear of ruining the emotion or crippling the effect it has on us?

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is a fictional story dually narrated by the two protagonists, Celia and Marco, two magicians in training who are set to compete against one another in an age old competition held by their tutors. Celia Bowen is the daughter of Hector Bowen, a famous stage magician operating in England, who discovers her natural ability for magic when her mother sends her back to him, claming she was the "devil's child". Marco Alisdair is an orphan who is adopted by Alexander, refered to as the alusive "man in the grey suit", for his part in the game. Much less connected and invovled with Marco than Celia and Hector, Alexander works as a watchful guardian who gives Marco the teachings necessary and nothing more, when Hector follows his daughter and raises her with the competition in mind.

The compeition, which has not been directly stated as to what it will involve yet, starts with Celia and Marco at a young age. When Hector Bowen and Alexander meet to verify the competion, a rematch from a previous game, Alexander first asks if Prospero has "at least considered the possibility that she could be lost, should the competition not play out in her favor" (17).  A detail that brings the fate of the competitors into the the mind of the reader and creates even more confusion of the compeition itself. This slight note to the menacing intentions of the game also show the relationship between Hector and Celia, giving the author the decision as to whether Hector believes in her inability to fail or lack of care for her life. Once Hector has assured Alexander of her ability, by allowing her to levitate then destroy and reassemble a pocket watch, Alexander takes off his ring and places it around Celia's finger, where it burns and fuses with her scaring her skin, marking her admission into the game. Propsero gives Alexander a similar ring to give to his student once he selects one as to lock in the contestants.

The Reason that the book is called The Night Circus is because Hector and Alexander decide that the arena for their game should be held in a circus. This circus has become the main theme of the book so far with the activities there being the warm up between Celia and Marco. A man named Chandresh, a rich man a need for a new activity, is sought out by Alexander and convinced to start a circus, the Circus des Reves or the Circus of Dreams. He becomes the head of the circus, organizing and building it up. He brings together all arrangements of performers from contortionists to performing identical twins and gymnasts, but the most important pieces of the circus are Celia and Marco themselves. They each operate within the circus, but independently. Due to the rules of the game, they are not allowed to directly interact with one another, but the circus allows them to show off and experiment with their skills. The first part of the game is to show off what the two can do and try to best the other contender. Celia, for example, has specific tents that she operates on opening nights where she causes a contorionists to disappear in a cloud of smoke out of a sealed glass box, or when she designs a magical carrousel that baffels and excites the guests. Marco also gets to show his abilities in his own tents, a tent that is a garden of flowers and fruits all made of ice, or a grand bonfire that glows all colors of the rainbow and extends ten feet high.

The parts that stick out the most for me with regard to literary presence and what we have been doing this year in english are that of the description of the circus itself and some key literary devices that have been used. Obviously there is the foil between the two main characters of Celia and Marco, their interaction with one another and the different backgrounds they have coming into the compeition. There is the interesting way the story is arranged by chapter with short excerpts stemming from Celia's point of view then shifting to Marco's or of a third party member like the circus' members or even Hector/ Alexander. The most gripping part though has been the emphasis on colors and presentation of the circus. Everything is in a glimmering silver, a charcoal black, or a glowing white that seems to permeat all aspects of the circus. The magical realism of the circus can be seen in the actual magical feats that occur within the circus and the interactions that the vistors have. I believe that my research on the project should be into magic and its precieved effects because the term "magical realism" is perfect for the The Night Circus. The cricus is run by actual magic and has a magical air about it for all the vistors that come through the silver and gold gates.