Frozen Sea Picture

http://www.shauntan.net/books.html

 

I chose this painting illustrated by Shaun Tan because it clearly shows the thoughts I have on Kafka’s statement. The picture inside the frame represents reality- dull, the same, lifeless. The long path represents the journey of reading a magnificent book- it leads to a world of imagination, a place with no boundaries. The scrolls in front of our ‘reality’ are the keys to the realm of imagination-our ice axes, our books that guide us to the world outside the frame. This world shows the outside of our prison, our frozen sea, the world of ideas and imagination. The world of imagination is filled with impossible creatures, colors, differences, life- which is all shown in this painting. 

Quote Reflection

“A book should be like an ice-axe breaking the frozen sea within us”-Franz Kafka 

    When I first read Kafka’s statement I could not understand his message. However, when I thought back to my favorite book series-Twilight written by Stephenie Meyer, and how it could be an ice axe- I understood exactly what he meant. Kafka explains our life as a prison, which is why he uses the term ‘frozen sea’. For when something is frozen there is no life, it is motionless- like reality. In reality there is no such thing as talking animals, flying, hidden treasures. Reality can freeze our imagination; block our big ideas, paralyzing us from moving forward- leaving our mind, our life immobile, cold and lifeless. Our weapons, our ‘ice-axes’, that can free us from our shackles and spark our imagination, are the books we read. However these weapons, these books, must be sharp, captivating, hooking the reader to every word. These books must be able to bring us to places we have never dreamed of- light up ideas we could never think of alone. Amazing books should bring us comfort in our saddest of days or give us a companion in our loneliest of times. Books should release us from our prison, and give us knowledge of what is beyond our iron bars, our frozen sea. Books can provide us with knowledge of what has been, what is happening, and what is to come. Knowledge that can give us power leading to a successful life. “A book should be like an ice-axe”, a powerful weapon which is able to break the hardest of ice, releasing our ideas and imagination. Kafka emphasizes this message by using a simile, ‘A book should be like an ice-axe’, and using the oxymoron, ‘frozen sea’. A frozen sea is an oxymoron because seas are constantly moving. Constantly creating waves, the way books can constantly unlock the prisons of our imagination, creating new thoughts and ideas.   

However, many that are unprivileged are unable to read books because they cannot read and they cannot afford books. That is why many of the unprivileged are frozen in their knowledge less lives, forcing them to find shelter in the cruel streets. Others have the privilege of reading some books taken away from them. Leaders- for example the Nazis found Jewish books dangerous, so they burned Jewish books to block ‘dangerous’ ideas and information from leaking out. Some deny the opportunity to read, leaving themselves frozen in reality, with different and limited knowledge and imagination. I used to be one of these people, only reading books when it was forced upon me. That was until this summer, where my brother introduced me to the Twilight series. From the very beginning to the very end Stephenie Meyer hooked me into her saga and broke the frozen sea within me. Before reading the Twilight saga I was not the superstitious type. After reading about a vampire falling in love with a mortal, it sparked up my imagination.  It made me believe the impossible. Its characters kept me company in my lonely grandmother’s house I stayed in during the summer. The series opened a drawer full of ideas inside me that was waiting to be unlocked- it melted the “frozen sea within me.” I now keep asking myself, “Can someone walking around me possibly be a vampire? Witch? Fairy? Werewolf?” Reading the Twilight saga has liberated my imagination, opening my mind to the unlimited boundaries of imagination. The Twilight saga has been the ice axe that has broken ‘the frozen sea within me.’

Memory Pages

I waved good-bye to my best friends with tears over flowing my eyes. I sobbed in my car that drove away from what once was my home towards the Bangkok airport. My friends became smaller and smaller, until they were out of sight. Then I buried my face into my dad’s arms as I hugged the scrapbook they made me as a going away present.  Inside that scrapbook contains letters the size of essays from all my friends, even from different grades; and countless pictures of sleepovers, hangouts, and parties. Pictures, that captured the times that we have shared. The scrapbook is nothing fancy - just a spiral notebook costing 50.20baht to be exact (5.02rm), with a yellow cover that says ‘The International School of Bangkok’ (ISB). However, through my eyes it is priceless- something I would never trade for material things, like diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. For almost nothing is more important to me than my friends, my second family. The friends that have always been there to lend a helping hand- pulling me back up when I’m hanging by a thread above an ocean of problems. They were always there, standing next to me sharing the moments when I conquered my fears, and felt as if I had won the world. Though there were those times where we experienced hardships, in the end it just became something else to joke about.

My friends were there in the good times and bad, and whenever I look through the pages of my scrapbook, it brings me back to those days. Especially the first day I stepped foot on the grounds of ISB when I was nine. Lacking confidence, shy, quiet, not having the guts to make new friends, and now. Now thanks to them I’m in this new place where I’m confident, sometimes too loud, and always willing to meet someone new. All thanks to the friends I’ve made during my two and a half year stay in Bangkok. The friends that transformed me from a shy little girl- to a girl that is lively and laughs nonstop. The friends that dedicated countless hours to take pictures, print them, collect letters and decorate every page with their pointless doodles. Not only that, they always kept me busy in my last days of Bangkok. From paint balling, movie nights, endless sleepovers, dinners, mall outing, and even a surprise party! All of those precious memories are held inside my scrapbook. The scrapbook that never fails to put a smile on my face- the sanctuary I went to, during the “new kid stage” I experienced at my first months studying at my new school. Though it has been more than a year since I moved away, through my eyes my scrapbook is, and always will be more precious than any jewel. It will always be my escape- waiting for me when I want to forget about my hectic future, and spend a moment remembering my without a care past.