Does the end justify their means?

Marc Antony

‘Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar!’ (3.1 lines 77) ‘Julius Caesar’ a story that shows the conflict among the noble Romans, there was the conspiracy that were against Caesar and there was people like Antony that loved Caesar. There was only one conflict to Antony; it was Caesar’s death. Antony was just a normal person that liked to have fun all the time, and had no hatred against anyone in the Senate or in Rome. However, when Caesar was killed Antony was not the Antony he was before, he changed into this man with determination to kill everyone as revenge for Caesar. Having his best friend die, Antony was motivated by revenge and love to take down all the people that had any connection to Caesar’s death.

Antony could be described as a sheep in the beginning of the story because he had nothing to worry about; as long as Caesar was alive Antony was always happy. Antony was this innocent little sheep that listened to everything that Caesar told him to, not because he was weaker than Caesar, because he loved Caesar. ‘ I shall remember: When Caesar says, ‘do this,’ it is perform’d.’ (1.2 lines 9~10). This is the first time that Antony was introduced to the story. And as you can see Antony’s lines show how much love he had towards Caesar. This shows that Caesar was Antony’s best friend and that Antony would do anything for Caesar. Everything was so peaceful for Antony when Caesar was alive, but since he loved Caesar that much, when Caesar was taken away from him, Antony was motivated that he will have to kill the people involved in the conspiracy. Because they had killed Antony’s best friend, not only his best friend but also the person he loved the most, Antony’s love for Caesar made Antony trust Caesar as a friend. ‘He was my friend, faithful and just to me;’ (3.2 lines 83). Antony talks in Caesar’s funeral, which the crowd was all happy of Caesar’s death. Antony’s speech means that Caesar was his friend and was a reliable man. Which was the total opposite of what the conspirators had said. From this you can identify that Antony was disagreeing with the reasons why Caesar had to be killed. When Antony says ‘friend’ it shows that Antony wants to say that Caesar had no ambition of being the king of Rome. But since the conspirators had killed his friend because of the fact that they thought he had started growing ambition in him made Antony unhappy. His best friend that he loved the most had been killed because of a stupid reason that didn’t even suit Caesar. The love that Antony had towards Caesar affected the decisions on saying either Caesar was ambitious or not. If Antony had no love for Caesar nothing much would have motivated him to take action after Caesar’s death. But love was not the only motivators that drove Antony to kill all the conspirators; Antony also killed them for revenge.

Caesar’ death changed Antony from a little innocent sheep to this bug hungry lion. Antony was determined to bring destruction to Rome, there was no limit on where he would stop, but his goal was to bring destruction/ kill the conspirators until everyone that he had listed died. Revenge came after love. Antony loved Caesar, so as Caesar could not do anything about his death Antony decided to take revenge for him. ‘ Over thy wounds now do I prophesy… Domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of Italy.’ (3.1 lines 259,262,263) Here Antony is making a prophecy to Caesar’s dead body. Antony is saying that there will be a civil war in Rome and that there will be destruction all over Italy. This foreshadowed that Antony was going to be the one bring destruction and the one who was going to start the civil war. Revenge drove Antony to act like this. Since Caesar was killed like a carcass for the hounds Antony decides to bring a huge destruction back to Rome as Caesar died. ‘ These many then shall die; their names are prick’d.’ (4.1 lines 1) This shows that Antony had planned out everything and chose the people that he was going to kill. Antony became a strong leader for the Romans to follow and kill the guilty murderers. Nothing could stop Antony because he mind was fixed on killing the people he had listed. There was no motivator that could stop Antony behave the way he did.

Caesar’s death being the only conflict for Antony motivated him to kill everyone involved in the conspiracy because of the driving factors of ‘love,’ and ‘revenge.’ Love and revenge made Antony decide on a goal and navigated him to his goal. The love he had and the burning fire of revenge he wanted to take for Caesar did not stop him from his goal. Antony did achieve his goal at the end, since he had the help from Octavius and the people of Rome (that he had convince with his speech at Caesar’s funeral) he had brought down everyone that was involved in the conspiracy. I think Antony achieved his goal because of his motivators. They were good driving factors together, because love leaded onto revenge. Which made Antony have a stronger motivation. Antony’s goal was noble because it justified his mean. Antony had made his revenge for his best friend Caesar and Rome was back to peace again.

'Lost boys of Sudan' Collage

Think Creatively!
Collages always seem to go well with the SLR ‘think creatively.’ I had to think how I could send a clear message through pictures and words. So, I decided to shape my collage as Sudan because I wanted my collage to represent the lost boys and the Sudanese people and I also made my six word memoir stand out more than any other thing on my collage by cutting them out in big capital black letters on the middle of my collage. I also decided to scatter all the pictures on my collage because I wanted to show ‘chaos’ and chaos is what the lost boys and the Sudanese people experienced because of a civil war.

Reason Critically!
I chose many symbolic pictures to represent many different things. One was the one with racism with a big cross over it, which means ‘stop racism, because racism is what the lost boys found difficult to come across when they migrated to America. Other pictures that are very symbolic are the pictures that show starvation, despair, hope, separation, and death. These shows my understanding of the lost boy’s situation because they have been separated from the people they love many family members did not see each other again, they went through a life of despair at such a young age, there was no sign of food because the war had brought destruction that destroyed all the food sources, they saw people dying right in front of their eyes, and finally they started to grow hope inside them because of the help they got from UN. Also, my six word memoir ‘Kill us, separate us. Why us?’ supports the collage by giving an idea of what the lost boys experienced. I also had images with words which represent the following things; no more violence, no more killing in Sudan, no more racism, no more slavery in Sudan and fear. Most of the images showed the negative part that the lost boys experienced but also some strong images that showed the positive part that the lost boys experienced. I feel I have reasoned critically by using images and words that represented the lost boys’ feelings and what experiences they went through.

Communicate Effectively!
I’ve chose 6 words that would communicate effectively to any audience. ‘Kill us, separate us. Why us?’ These words definitely create awareness for the Lost Boys’ plight because it is what they really experienced. I did not only convey message with my images and words on my collage but the design I had. I did not glue my images in a patterned way because I did not want the images that represented the same meaning in one place. Since, the lost boys’ had taken so many stepped migrations they were all confused, which also goes well with my collage because you can not see a steady idea going on. But this does not mean I just randomly glued images onto my collage. All the images I glued were the images I thought would best to create awareness for the lost boys’ plight.

Live Ethically!
I think my collage demonstrated empathy, because I used thoughtful images and words. There are images that would definitely evoke an emotional response from my viewers. There is an image of a mom and a baby crying together, a young kid who is very skinny that you can see the child’s bones, a woman crying, and a child burying his face to his knees. Also, I added images of the group/organization that is helping out Sudan so the viewers could go to the site of the organization and learn more on what’s happening in Sudan.

A new start

Peter, one of the 'lost boys' from Sudan's Dinka tribe was force to migrate to Kenya because of the civil war that started in Sudan. The Sudanese people lived in refugee camps where they waited until their names were on the list of the group that would go to America and start a new life. Peter was chosen to go to America and he left with a mind to get a good education and help his family, people in the refugee camp and the people of Sudan in general by sending back money. Peter thought America would be like heaven and it was heaven for him and the rest of the ‘lost boys’ at the beginning because they could eat anytime they wanted to and everything was just better than Africa. However, Peter’s mind started to change as time went by. He realized that life in America was harder than the life in Africa.

Peter started to come across problems. He wasn’t being educated as much as he wanted to be, life in his apartment was dangerous because the security level was very low, needed more money to send back to Africa, and the life he was living wasn’t the way he expect it to be. After living for a while in Houston he moved to Kansas. From here a lot of things changed for Peter, many things started to meet his needs.

When he arrived at Kansas he met with some of the other Sudanese refugees and stayed with them for a while. Here he learnt from them that he could get a birth certificate and apply himself to a public high school. He applied to Olathe East High School. From this school he was well educated, and started to pick up the American life real quick. He played basketball with his American friends, went to church to fit in with people, attended parties, got driving license, dressed up and talked like an American teenager. Everything seemed to turn out well for him. However not everything turned out to be a good thing. Peter came across stereotypes the people set towards his race (racism). The boss at walmart said to Peter and the other workers (that had dark colored skin/black) that they can work under the heat because they were already used to working under heat because Africa is very hot. The teacher at his high school expected him to go into the easy classes and came to a conclusion that he would be going to a community college because he expected Peter to not meet the standards a normal college was looking for. But Peter worked hard and changed the thought that his teacher had. Peter also learnt and saw that people judged people by their skin color and if a person was black he was judged as a dangerous or a person in a lower class than them. Facing the racism and stereotypes weren't the only problem he came across. Peter had more responsibilities, because he had to go to school, study, make his own food, work, do his school work, and send back money to Africa. Peter surely has a much better life than Santino (his friend from Sudan who is still living in Houston) but Peter does come across problems too.

Although Peter has not yet fully accustomed to life in America living in Kansas got Peter to think that life is actually becoming easier in America than in Africa as time goes by, which is because Peter is adapting to the life in America.

The Black Box

I would still call this story 'The Black Box,' because it gives a lot of tension to the readers. When I first got the package I was looking for the title, but it wasn't there. However, later on in the story the black box was mentioned. And the black box keeps on coming out. So, I think it would still be a good way to create tension in the readers by making the title 'The Black Box.' Lotteries usually make people happy if they got it. But there was something strange about the lottery in this story. I got a feeling that the lottery meant death from the beginning because of how the people were not looking forward to the lottery day. I kept predicting many different endings to the story when the ending was not given to me. I kept asking questions to myself thinking if my predictions were right about the lottery being the lottery of death. I went last to get the mysterious paper in the black box, but I had no black dot on it which made me kind of people happy. The mysterious paper didn't really create tension in me because some of my friends started looking through the paper which just showed me what the paper was about. But I waited untill 5:00 p.m to open the paper because it was interesting to see how long I could stay resisting to open the paper. But the part that the people with black dot were doing the playing test was a real twist to this activity. I felt normal again, everything was answered, and I found out that my predictions were right. Yes, my predictions were correct. It made me feel like I achieved something. Like all artists and composers do, this was the type of story that was made to leave questions in the readers' mind. I do think that if there was no ending given to the readers would have made this a more mysterious story and people would think more about it. The best experience of the 'Power of the Void,' was just everything. The new concept of 'void' just thrilled my mind. Doing the void activities made me connect music to stories.