Adjoa: "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming"

Creative writer- one considered to be a strange being that draws material and manages to arouse in us emotions which were not thought of.

Phantasy / phantasising- it is the fulfillment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality. One might do this by using an occasion in the present to construct, on the pattern of the past, a picture of the future where all dreams hopefully come true.

Day-dream- could be explained as building castles in the air and linking real objects to make meaning to the individual.

Freud introduces the passage by saying that “altogether, the paper, however casual its tone, is a serious contribution to the psychology of creativity and hence part of his effort at constructing a general psychology” (Freud 436). He explained how phantasies and day-dreams are used by the creative writer to produce great stories that effectively catches the attention of the ordinary person. In the ending paragraph, he state that “in my fore-pleasure of this kind, and our actual enjoyment of an imaginative work proceeds from a liberation of tensions in our minds . . . enabling us thenceforward to enjoy our own day-dreams without self-approach or shame” (Freud 443).

Discussion: if phantasising is all about wishes and dreams coming true, then does the successful individual stop day-dreaming? Are wishes limited to the unsuccessful?

Kelly: "Toys" from Mythologies

1. The most important word in Barthes' "Toys" is obviously 'toys'.
some other words in the essay are coenaesthesis and microcosm, which is the Middle Engkish for a little world.

2. The main idea is that the new plastic toys are not as good as the wooden toys because the plastic toys cause individuals to show less creativity.

One quote sums this idea up pretty well. "However, faced with this world of faithful and complicated objects, the child can only identify himself as owner, as user, never as creator; he does not invent the world, he uses it: there are, prepared for him, actions without adventure, without wonder, without joy."

3. Do new toys really inhibit imagination and creativity?
Do the new toys of today, such as ipods and game systems also cause individuals to identify themselves as only a user? Does decrease in creativity and individuality occur due to the use of these items?
(all of the questions are based on the quote from question #2)