20 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2022
    1. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.)[12] Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.

      Human labour, physical work invested, represents the aim of the product and the human labor as an abstract. The cost of labour then is part of the process in creating value contained with commodities. The true value of the commodity is then judged by current society, ie: wants and needs.

    2. The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it.

      The value of the commodity and by extension, human labour, is valued to what is regarded as necessary by current society.

    3. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.)[12] Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.  

      The value of the commodity is directly tied to the collective human labour and is relative to what is judged by society. Intrinsically, if the commodity has no value than the labour attached to making it also has no value.

    1. Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.

      death, gloom, dark imagery. Maintains a "haunting" like atmosphere.

    2. John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.

      -Keeping in my pyschological trauma and possible projections of fears from parents. The cycle continues.

    1. Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: “Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces,

      irregular rhyme scheme ABAB, often repeats same rhyme scheme -eyes out for interior rhyme

    1. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized.

      chalk another one up for maintaining civility and making a distinction of being morally correct and upstanding via dress code. What I'm trying to say is Scooby-doo is right, the real monsters are the people.

    2. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one’s fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live—undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are—my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray’s good looks—we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.”

      Establishing class distinction for Victorian era stereotypes -Lower classes were seen as "inferior" -Upholds the idea of the "upper class" as being morally correct, respectable, and superior.

      This particular line irks me because its saying in heavy quotations that the lower class are "better" because they don't have the responsibility to be "upperclass"

  2. Feb 2022
    1. her sister Charlotte, overseeing publication of the novel after Emily’s death, felt it necessary to rewrite some of the passages.

      Question of how real is too real. Where does the line need to be drawn or is it more of a vague understanding of what is socially acceptable to represent and what is too distinct. Also wondering if this was the time period where people started to write "This work is fiction any similarities are purely coincidental" type of preface.

    1. proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.

      The task at hand requires the mental strength of many as well as one's own to be solid. Essentially foreshadowing a collapse of other's mental strength. Could be metaphorical for saying that the only change that's possible is from one's own ability but can be supported by others.

    1. For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

      Is this a criticism of monotheism as something akin to being out of place?

    2. Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

      Proteus is a sea god, if I remember my greek mythology properly, he's the eldest son of Poseidon. Triton being another son. Both are sea gods, but have distinct visuals and ideas connected to them. Thus, Proteus rising from the sea. Triton's conch

    3. The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

      Feels like the world is overwhelming and drains us of our energy. Getting and spending feels like a call out to capitalism cuz it just feels like the end goal.

    1.  Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough   Within thy hearing, or thy head be now

      References back to the Haitian push for freedom by those who "tend the plough." I think with the use of "tend his plough" there's a sense of legacy.

    1. What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

      Not sure if relevant for this time period, but there was a notion before that those who worked with iron/steel were regarded as something sinister or almost devil-like. But there's definitely some insinuation that whoever designed the tyger made something that struck awe and fear.

    2. Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

      I think this is a reference to God. But the lack of capitalization on the he makes me wonder if it's to ridicule the gap in the creatures. i.e: the Lamb that is meant to be a symbol of God's graces vs the Tyger who is dreaded and terrible.

    3. In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

      Questions seem like they are in awe of the tiger. There's a sense of amazement and fear to the might of the tiger. A questioning of the very fibers that create the tiger and how it's "shoulder" "eyes" "hands" and "feet" are "deadly terrors"

    4. Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

      Questioning if symmetry here is used to allude to the perceived lines of a tiger's stripes, or if it's to dissect something more abstract.

    1.   After this I ran away and went to my mother, who was living with Mr. Richard Darrel. My poor mother was both grieved and glad to see me; grieved because I had been so ill used, and glad because she had not seen me for a long, long while. She dared not receive me into the house, but she hid me up in a hole in the rocks near, and brought me food at night, after every body was asleep.

      A parent's love and care despite the horrors of slavery being very apparent. The strongest form of humanity despite the slavery being one of the ways to dehumanize someone.