Juan Victor M.

Gamo
R62
September 28, 2014

1. Discuss three stories (from "Diary of a Madman" to "Super Frog") that are interconnected by a
point or an insight about a particular issue or topic.

You Can Run, but You Cannot Hide

Escapism is a literary impulse, and escapist art is the highest art. (Anders, 2009)
Escapism is a drug manufactured to lull you away from seeing how messed up things are, and
how much endurance you truly have for adversities. Escapism is the cowards preferred narcotic.

The stories Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol, The Relive Box by T. Coraghessan
Boyle and The Magic Chalk by Kobo Abe demonstrate and delve into man's tendency to escape
the harsh realities of life, but consequently going deeper and deeper into a seemingly inescapable
abyss. In the Diary of a Madman, the protagonist's "abyss" is in his mind itself. As for Wes in The
Relive Box, his "abyss" is his past which he has the luxury to live all over again through the
Relive Box itself. Meanwhile, in The Magic Chalk, Argon's abyss is the chalk-world he himself
had made.

Diary of a Madman narrates what seems to be a journal of a middle-aged man named

Aksenty Ivanovich Poprishchin who works for the central government. His specific job is to
sharpen pens for his director. He found that to be too boring and meaningless. To add insult to
injury, Poprishchin is constantly berated by his boss and criticized for getting older and not
making anything of himself. He also yearns to be noticed by his bosss daughter, Sophie, but they
never actually had a real conversation with each other. He is without a wife, world-weary and
hungry for attention.
They dont listen to me, they dont hear me, they dont see me. I cannot bear this suffering.
The daily entries in his journal slowly but surely reveal how much he has lost control of
his sanity and his desire to escape the bleak, bureaucratic world he lives in. Although the more

intense his longing to escape his bland and boring life, and blaming others for it to boot, the more
and more insane he got. Poprishchin started out hearing dogs talk and having conversations with
each other. Later on, he learns that he has become the King of Spain. He stops going to his
actual work and begins signing documents as Ferdinand VIII. He soon believes to have made a
trip to Spain itself but in truth, its just his imagination of an actual trip to an insane asylum where
he is shaved and beaten.
On the other hand, The Relive Box is a story about Wes, his daughter Katie and their
handy-dandy little gadget, the titular Relive Box. Wes and Katie were left and abandoned by
Christine, Wess wife, some years ago and now they are left with the longing to relive their
glorious past together. Although, Wess yearning to relive the past goes beyond their happy
moments with Christine. He wanted to relive all his past relationships, sexual encounters and he
even goes way back to his own birth.
Who wouldnt want to relive innocence, the nascent stirrings of love and desire, or the
first time you removed her clothes and she removed yours?
Good thing, there was the five-thousand-dollar, second-generation Halcom X1520 Relive Box
with the In-Flesh Retinal Projection Stream. Though apparently and eventually, a good thing it
was not. This gadget forever altered the dynamic between Wess relationship with Katie, in a
sense, that he has become oblivious to his responsibilities as a father to his daughter. Moreover,
he has become less and less committed to his work, always arriving late with a zombie stare.
His addiction to escape his current life, which hardly interests him anymore, has buried him
deeper and deeper into an abyss, that is his past. Consequently, his life in the present is also
affected, with his dwindling relationship with his daughter and declining efficiency at work. The
ironic thing about the Relive Box is you can only relive any moment of your past as a mere
observer. That only accentuates the fact that you can no longer relive the past, per se, but only
recall them as mere memories. This gadget only adds vividness to those memories. Its also as if
this feature of the gadget is saying You have no choice but to live the life you have NOW. But
who can accomplish that when one just sits idly by as he/she relives his/her past. You can run
from the present, but never can you ever hide from it.
Finally, in The Magic Chalk, we follow the story of a poor, struggling artist named Argon
who lives alone in an empty apartment. One day, he finds a piece of red chalk in his pocket and
starts drawing portraits of food in the wall out of desperate hunger. Later that night, he is
awakened by the sound of smashing dishes and realizes that all his drawings have turned into

reality. He then draws himself a bed but realizes the next day that his drawings revert back into
drawings in the sunlight. He did all he can to be isolated so that his drawings will forever become
real. He eventually decided to draw a purse full of money, some more food and an entirely new
world. These are all for his own benefit. In sense, he just drew his way out of his misery.
I dont care what happens, better to escape.
His tactlessness and ignorance would soon fire back at him. In his desire to create an
entirely new world where everything will be perfect for him, he just draws a door on the wall and
deems whatever be behind that door a perfect world. A barren wasteland it was, a subtle depiction
of what his real life is. He had become somewhat lonely so he draws an Eve to his Adam in
the form of Miss Nippon. To cut the long story short, even Miss Nippon, his own creation,
discovers how bogus his new world is, so she destroys the door, allowing sunlight in. We come
full circle with Argon being summoned and compelled to the wall, being a drawing made of
chalk. We see in this story how much a man would do to fulfill his needs, moreover, his wants.
Argon isolates himself from the real world to make a whole new world of his own. Although as
time passed, his attempt to escape his humdrum life would fire back at him.
The first week passed in discontent. The second week flew by in inebriation and
gluttony. The third week passed by in despair resembling insanity.
As stated earlier, these three stories demonstrate mans tendency to escape the harsh
realities of life. But moreover, they show the consequences of doing so. Whether it be going
absolutely insane like in Diary of a Madman, losing touch with real-life relationships and
responsibilities such as in The Relive Box, or maybe even metaphorically turning into a chalk
drawing on the wall like in The Magic Chalk, running from life can only do you so much. You
can never hide from it, and thats the truth. Life will always find a way to bring your feet back on
earth.

2. Choose three selections (from "Diary of a Madman" to "The Truman Show") that provide
interesting insights about life in the modern world. Expound on the said insights.

The Essence of Life in the Modern World

Some things are just too difficult to define. Like, if someone asks you, What is love?
you are quick to delve into your brain to find the wittiest and wisest answer possible, but of
course, you struggle. The best you could actually do is come up with its essence. As per MerriamWebster, essence means the true nature of anything, but what is true for one may be false for
another. It is subjective; all about perspectives. The words printed in that dictionary may define
all the words such as essence, but the actual essence of such words may not be captured. One
might argue that terms such as love may be ineffable, but one way you could truly find the
essence of something as subjective as love, is youd have to collate a number of different
perspectives, from different people, or even stories and merge them into one collaborative
definition. Thats is what I will try to accomplish as I delve into three different stories and come
up with the essence of life in the modern world.
The first story is The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. Its a science fiction short story
about the development of computers called Multivacs, its descendants and their relationships with
the human race through the course of seven historic settings, beginning in 2061. A different
character from each of the first six settings asks the exact same question: How can the net
amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased? The Multivac answered them all in
the same way after much thinking, saying INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL
ANSWER. Even AC, Multivacs ultimate descendant, is still unable to answer this question, but
continues to think hard even after time and space cease to exist. This story demonstrates mans
unending curiosity, technologys unceasing advancement and mans dependence on technology to
feed its curiosity. Technology may give an answer to most of mankinds questions, the most
essential questions in life, such as the essence of life in the modern world, is still up to mankind
to answer. Technology in the modern world, though powerful and efficient, still has no business
being mankinds master, instead only a slave whom shall not be abused. Life is still full of
unanswered questions. Mans ever-growing curiosity, with an assist by technology itself, will
eventually take care of that.

The second story is The Relive Box by T. Coraghessan Boyle. The main premise of this
story is that technology has found a way to create this revolutionary gadget called the Relive Box
that you can sit and front of and relive, with much vividity, any moment of your life in the past.
The dilemma, though, is that Wes, the protagonist of the story has been caught up too much with
reliving his past that he has forgotten how to live in his present. He has become too addicted with
using this device that he begins to lose touch with his relationship with his daughter and his
responsibilities at work. This story depicts how the people in the modern world are being
consumed by the ever-advancing technology. In the modern age, specifically the digital age, a lot
can be done in one touch that involves a lot of complications back in the day. The perks that come
with these teachnological advancements has gotten the people so engaged that they have
forgotten to appreciate the simple things in life and living back to basics. Moreover, technology
has decreased the dexterity and dynamic levels of children and adults alike all around the world.
One click, one touch and were done. Everything has become so easy, that we forget that life is
hard in reality. In the modern world, we may have forgotten the essence of life.

Finally, the story, or if I may say, the movie that I will delve into is The Truman Show.
The media's impact on our lives in the past decade has become a popular thematic centerpiece for
feature films and television programs. The Truman Show is one of those films. The film
underscores how the media manipulates public opinion and routinely creates fictions that
masquerade as facts. The story follows an insurance salesman/adjuster, Truman Burbank, as he
fights against an overlord, thousands of hidden cameras and hundreds of hired actors as he
discovers his entire life is actually a T.V. show. The town of Seahaven where he lives in is
nothing more than an elaborate set. His friends and family are all professional actors. The fake
landscape Truman lives represents our own media landscape. Here, advertising, news and even
politics are increasingly made up of theatrical illusions and bogus lies. Like our own media
landscape, it is convincing in its realism, with lifelike simulations and story lines. We are so
susceptible to everything thats being said in the news, social media and the like, that we no
longer analyze and break down situations before believing them. We accept things in its face
value, believing its meaning, but not delving into its essence.

Once again, we go back to essence. Media, much like technology, has had so much
impact in our lives, now more than ever. It has been growing rapidly and constitutes a huge part
of our lives. Though, as weve learned from The Last Question and The Relive Box, too much
dependence on technology can do us harm. Similarly, too much susceptibility to media can fire

back at us, as weve learned from The Truman Show. If I were to formulate the perfect essence of
life in the modern world based on the three selections, it would be mans struggle to cope with the
speed of technology and media; finding the balance between using them and abusing them. Its an
unending journey; an endless cycle much like mans curiosity and the progression of technology
and media themselves.