When Ms. Farago introduced us to RadioLab, I was quite apprehensive. A long conversation did not appeal to me as much as a video. Of course, after I'd listened to it, I was hooked. Not only are the podcasts enlightening but they are seeded with the speakers' humorous reactions.
One such tale which I listened to on the website was interesting, albeit depressing.
The setting is Paris. A woman, suspected to be suffering from unrequited love, commits suicide by jumping off a bridge into the river Seine. Her body is found but never identified. When it is displayed in a morgue, the director of the establishment finds her face so alluring that he commissions a mask to be made. Listen up HSERT members because this is where it gets interesting. The CPR dummies that we all recognize? Their faces are modelled after this lady, "L'inconnue de la Seine" (The unknown woman of the Seine).
The connection I made with the story is strongly linked with the dominant theme in the book - the glorification of death. Irony serves to present this theme in the story. Firstly, after she died, the death mask became a big hit in Paris. These death masks were bought and revered on the same pedestal as Napolean and other famous historical figures. Ironically however, no one was able to identify her when she died. However after her suicide, fame and wealth became attributed to her. These virtues, representing glory, ultimately became worthless as she could not exploit them.
The commentary by Prajakta, showed as an example in class, immediately jumped to my mind. In the case of the Inconnue, death creates glory in material objects while cruelly distancing the one who deserves it. Contrastingly, Prajakta's take on the glorification of death encompassed the release of the kittens's soul as an escape - essentially the ultimate reward.
After reading the story, the irony stunned me. A woman who drowned was immortalised in a dummy meant to save lives. She became extremely famous after her death. Even today, we may know all of the things that happened after her death but we know next to nothing about anything before that. What about her family, her accomplishments or even the most basic form of human identity - her name?
Link: Podcast
One such tale which I listened to on the website was interesting, albeit depressing.
The setting is Paris. A woman, suspected to be suffering from unrequited love, commits suicide by jumping off a bridge into the river Seine. Her body is found but never identified. When it is displayed in a morgue, the director of the establishment finds her face so alluring that he commissions a mask to be made. Listen up HSERT members because this is where it gets interesting. The CPR dummies that we all recognize? Their faces are modelled after this lady, "L'inconnue de la Seine" (The unknown woman of the Seine).
The connection I made with the story is strongly linked with the dominant theme in the book - the glorification of death. Irony serves to present this theme in the story. Firstly, after she died, the death mask became a big hit in Paris. These death masks were bought and revered on the same pedestal as Napolean and other famous historical figures. Ironically however, no one was able to identify her when she died. However after her suicide, fame and wealth became attributed to her. These virtues, representing glory, ultimately became worthless as she could not exploit them.
The commentary by Prajakta, showed as an example in class, immediately jumped to my mind. In the case of the Inconnue, death creates glory in material objects while cruelly distancing the one who deserves it. Contrastingly, Prajakta's take on the glorification of death encompassed the release of the kittens's soul as an escape - essentially the ultimate reward.
After reading the story, the irony stunned me. A woman who drowned was immortalised in a dummy meant to save lives. She became extremely famous after her death. Even today, we may know all of the things that happened after her death but we know next to nothing about anything before that. What about her family, her accomplishments or even the most basic form of human identity - her name?
Link: Podcast
