Emotions Cemented in Time

Daniel J. Neumann

Professor Yonker (Senior Seminar)

May 8th, 2012

Final Paper

 

Emotions Cemented in Time

We have micro worlds within us;

Our whole world is but a pixel;

Our perception changes our scale,

Like a cloud whirling with color—

Spiraling upwards by our sight.

To exist in the full moment,

We must be aware of our selves.                                       —Daniel J. Neumann

 

It may not be common to bookend an essay with poetry, but I’m not striving to do something common; I’m striving to do something obvious (yet hidden). I want to look at a horrible conflict between people by examining the people as people. Further, I intend to look at them for what they are: poems writing poetry. This being a product of post-modernism, and loosely derived from Foucault’s New Historicism, I’ll be implementing a deictic analysis. This basically means I’ll try to connect with the person writing the letter by adding my own meaning into his words. I hope that this method will improve empathy and a deeper understanding of war. For the sole purpose of relation and engagement, I’ll impose a level of interpretative flexibility in order to infer emotions and abstract ideas (codes). By the nature of emotions, sometimes they’re recorded less directly in a letter by means of framing or an altered state of awareness. Word choice is indicative of this.

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