Tuesday 13 November 2012

Do you think that at a random era of our life human beings show symptoms of insanity along with remaining traces of reason?
What can be the possible reasons that could be a trigger for madness?

Do people use  insanity to remain cautious against evil deeds happening in their environment? Or can their madness be genuine, caused by all kinds of pressure from their environment that we can think about?

Last question for arousing the interest is, how can we possibly differ actual madness inside one's own soul from a well-acted, feigned, insanity? Does a human being bear both reason and bits of madness in his or her mind?



You might have noticed that from the various shapes that I used to show the issue I wanted to explore in this blog post that I wanted my readers to develop a curiosity and an interest when they see ,in their blogger dasboard, edmodo posts page or in twitter, my interest area which is  Reason and Insanity.  I particulary want my readers to enjoy the content of this post as well as make them think as they have, hopefully,  a pleasent time when reading through this post.
As you can see that I produced three questions for my peers to ponder about before they engage in my blog post and state their opinions about these questions after reading my post.  Let's start with scientific explanations and definitons of reason and insanity.
What is reasoning? The world does not give us every information we need so our intellectual capacity, in other words our reason, grants us a set of process that enables us go beyond information that is given to us. For example we can see balloons that are being set and we can assume that it would either be a wedding party or a birthday party. If you are interested to read more about reasoning you can consult this link
What is insanity? Dictionaries around the world define insanity as “the condition of someone who is senseless and extremely foolish.” However, The men have untypical but intelligent reasons as to why they are the way they are. All the reasons to the men’s problems however were brought on due to their distinctive ways and beliefs. It is unfortunate that mankind can label certain people as not good enough or too abnormal for society.  For more information about insanity look at:

The definitions that I posed here are mere explanations that draw a distnictive line between reason, which is our intellectual capacity to understand our world beyond the knowledge we gained from environment, and insanity, as the source I found above states, is different ways of belief and understanding of our world that is unfortunately labeled as ''abnormal, extremely foolish'' by society.

***I wanted to show my readers that video clips from films and literary works as well as our childhood cartoons and animes to examplify the notions of reason and insanity and how they are portrayed in those works.  I thought it would be fun to watch and as well as consider the questions I provided above.***

Here is our first guest!

Our favourite bunny from all times-

Bugs Bunny, this highly intelligent rabbit became one of the cartoon heros along with his jealous and quiet comical friend Daffy Duck and the poor hunter that wants a 'wabbit' but fails miserably everytime in catching Bugs, Elmer Fudd. To illustrate how Bugs Bunny outsmarts both Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd through his high intellectual capacity(reasoning) I want to show you two scenes: 





Here, we can see that Elmer's desperate desire to kill Bugs Bunny
however, our favourite rabbit's clever tactics mocks the stupidity
of the hunter.  Bugs Bunny here uses his reasonable thinking
ability to outsmart Elmer who only has 'wabbit, wabbit' in his mind.



Here is another video that shows the keen mind of Bugs Bunny
against Daffy Duck who is jealous of the fame the bunny has.
We can clearly say that by staying calm and playing around with words
(pointing the gun to himself and saying 'rabbit season' and causing Daffy
to point the gun at himself and say 'duck season')
Bugs Bunny benefits from the temper that the duck shows through
his actions



Let us now explore the notion of insanity from a play

that 3rd year students of EFL read in their Drama Analysis course
Death of a Salesman

Most of us are familiar with the play and the themes that are mainly explored through the tragedy. American dream and a critization of its illusion. 
However, I want to explore Willy, the salesman, from the aspect of insanity.



From my own understanding as a student whom read this play I want
to state that Willy always lived in a world of dreams and hopes, constantly
thinking that despite the misfortunes that he faced with( being fired from
his job where he worked for 60 years, the problematic relationship he
had with his son Biff..)he continued to think that he could become a successful
salesman and bring his family an economical relief. Where do his insanity comes
from then? The way he began to see his dead brother's, Ben, presence and
hear his voice brought an insanity through which he could not differentiate
reality from his past anymore.



Let us continue with another play that is centered around
the notion of feigned madness and genuine insanity
William Shekspeare longest revenge tragedy
Hamlet




All of us know that Hamlet acted as though he was insane to find an evidence
that could give him signal for murdering his uncle, who became the new king of Denmark.
However, Ophelia, the woman Hamlet loves, shows the genuine madness when his father was accidentaly killed by Hamlet and the way Hamlet rejected her love.




The fact that the young prince educated in a way of reasonable thinking can be shown
through his speeches(his thinking process),
in this case soliloquies, even though he feigned madness. However, here is a
question for you all, was Hamlet only acting as though he was insane or did he in course
of the play actually became mad?



Here, is the scene where we can see Ophelia's behaviors and maddened actions. When compared
to Hamlet's intellectual speeches, Ophelia words seemed to sang through an appearant
insanity she was suffering from.

Let us now leave the tragic plays and
return to the world of anime characters-
And especially see how insanity is portrayed
in animes.



I have  one favourite anime, which is roughly Japanese cartoon,
that is adapted from a popular manga called Naruto Shippuden.
The stroy main components are unique fights of ninjas and ''bonds'' that are
created between friends and students/teachers.
 I want your attention to be on the black haired boy in the picture I posted
who is named Sasuke and show how his insanity is depicted in the anime.




In order to understand Sasuke's madness we need to look at the reasons that caused
such a violent outburst from him. The basic plot for his character is shaped like this:
He has a brother named Itachi who murdered whole clan, sparing only Sasuke. 
Sasuke grew up with a hatred towards his brother,
when he actually killed he was given the truth that shedded
a light on why Itachi murdered whole clan, it was for the future of the village(Konoha) as the
the family were trying to take over Konoha, with the pain of killing his own brother( he
shared a mutual brotherly love between Itachi) and learning the truth, he became bloodthirsty
for the ones(village elders) who ordered Itachi for the massacre of his family.

4 comments:

  1. Nil your blog is really rich in terms of the use of videos and pictures that express what is insanity and reason. I liked your organization and questions that you set for us wisely. As you said that insanity can as a trace of reason, it can be either in fake manner or not and it can also occur under the pressure of the environment that we are living in. What I like is that I found an opportunity to see the differences between insanity and reason in your point of view. Your organization is fine and catchy. I think that insanity has three edges. How can it be? Let me exemplify one edge of insanity by giving a really close example for you =)). Do you remember telling me that a friend of you, who gives gifts that comes out of surprise egg to you at every break, he is very clever but as he has high intellect, it causes him seem insane. This shows how the power of our intellect can cause insanity. On the other hand, the power of our intellect can enable us to seem insane so that we can figure out the hidden sides of the life/events that we are curious about. As you gave Hamlet and Ophelia as examples above, Hamlet is an important figure that shows his brilliant intellectual ability and ability to pretend to be insane. In that case as he was trying to get evidence of how his father killed by Claudius which was his uncle, he became an insane people under false pretenses. He was very clever man used his intellect to pretend to be mad so that he can't get attention from others; he was trying to be invisible while he was trying to learn the truth in a way. The aim of his to hide his real feelings by playing a game which was being mad. This shows us that people can willingly choose to pretend to be mad as they have a purpose. When I consider Ophelia, her madness totally different from these two stated above, in my opinion, because she found herself on the edge of her hopelessness; which take us to her being mad. She,in a way, lost as she lost her balance in both her mind and her heart. Other examples that you gave us were so expressive and funny, I loved the Bunny's videos that you chose. In a nutshell, insanity has three dimensions in my point of view. What can we understand from this, knowing the types of insanity can save our lives as we can figure out easily the bad intentioned people around us, can we? ;)

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  2. Absolutely I agree with Ayten this is awesome, informative and also funny blog post for discussion, Nil. Additionally, yes I have also recognize that boy those who suppose him as insane but actually he is clever; however, he has so much hyperactivity in himself :) I think we as a person should be able to seperate reason and insanity. Those who use their insanity as for catching some clues from others are not actually mad; in constrast they are clever and ambitious in terms of what they want to catch about and they can easily access whatever they want at the end of this actness. ıf I think about Hamlet, yes he has to be pretended as if he is mad but no one except one person knows this that's because of his demanding of reveal the thruth about his father dad. Ophelia loved Hamlet so much but she did not take anything (any love) from Hamlet therefore she got really mad at the end due to her wishes not became true. We should search for reason in such cases; otherwise, undiscovering them leads the other people sad. Moreover; while discover it, if there is symptoms for getting insane we should help that person who gets insane by doctor, pscyhatrist or so. So, in brief; nobody wants get insane in their own life and no body wants to lost his/her closest ones in their life, right ? :)

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  3. You chose very interesting topic and gave very good and integrated topics that grap my attention. Reason and insanity are really interesting. The xamples that you give reflect almost the daily life of people. Sometime we seem insane and sometimes we seem reasonable people. For example, when a person becomes furious or sad, that person can seem very strange and can behave differently than s/he does normally. This can be seen as insanty sign; however, when the same person think what he is doing, s/he behave more logical ans seem reasonable person. Your topic is really interesting and to me, it seems that human beings are unstable creatures between reason and insanity.

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  4. Your topic seems very interesting and as I read it, I become aware that almost all of us use reasoning to understand the tings around us in our daily lives. It is a part of our lives. Also, I think that it is the nature of human beings to associate known things with unknown one to understand the underlying reasons or things, to get the message. On the other hand, insanity is also a thing that some of us use as a weapon towards the undesirable situations. We prefer acting as a mad person to escape from some bad situations as you mention in the Hamlet video. I think that it is somehow a useful way for escaping from bd thinks. So, I believe that both insanity and reasoning have parts in our lives to survive.

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