Christopher Campbell
6/6/08
Starr 4
Revelation

Concepts: What is Revelation? What is a trope / revelation trope?
A revelation is something that tries or attempts to reveal the unknown. It is also a disclosure or enlightening idea, or realization that helps you better understand the world. Within a revelation, there is a prophet and the revealer. We find ourselves watching the same movies or reading the same story lines over and over again which is known as a trope. A revelation Trope is a familiar thing you see / certain element used over and over again or something that occurs more than once in different things. Some crucial elements of the revelation trope are things that might be life changing, a revealer and prophet, crisis, something big happen to the revealer. Some key elements to a revelation trope are the prophet and the revealer try to share a message that connects the dots in a new way but the new message offers a vision of a redeemed world, but there is opposition to the message and then drama occurs. The revelation only works if the prophet is ready to take upon their responsibilities and take action for the good of others. It is the prophets choice whether or not they Each revelation or message that is being presented to the prophet might not be a world changing factor, but it can be either self life changing or a small percentage of the real world’s situation that can later on make a difference. In a revelation trope the revealer and prophet seems to be physically opposite or distinct from one another. Also there are certain scenes or descriptions from books and movies that can be seen in revelation tropes.

Descriptive
Tropes can play a major role in either a book or movie because the audience can identify the reoccurring scene and can connect it to other things to try and reveal its meaning. Elements of a revelation trope consist of the following: ignorant masses, an unacceptable situation, a prophet or revealer trying to share a message that presents things in a new way and that offers a new redeemed world, opposition to the messenger, and then drama occurs. A trope can be seen within movies, plays, and literature.

One example of a revelation trope is a famous childhood fable called “The Emperors New Clothes” by Han Christian Anderson. Two scoundrels accomplish to play a trick on the emperor in believing that they were tailors and have developed this way of making clothes that are invisible and that those who are too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its value. When the scoundrels presented the new clothing to the Emperor, he is too afraid of being viewed as stupid that he pretends that there is really a garment. Others within the kingdom also pretended that there was a garment because they were also afraid of being seen as stupid. The people of the town heard about this garment being made and were anxious for the Emperor to show them. The Emperor agreed to show them, even though when he looked in the mirror, he only saw himself naked, not a beautiful suit. As the Emperor paraded down the main square, the people all pretended to see something, in fear of letting their Emperor know they were too stupid. However, a child came forward and said “The Emperor is naked,” and soon everyone else in the crowd realized it was true. The Emperor knew they were right, but refused to admit to it, so he simply stood there on his carriage continuing on with the parade. The scoundrels in this story are the messengers, as they are trying to prove how vain the Emperor truly is. The unstable situation is the fact that the people are so ignorant and that the Emperor is so concerned with his clothes and how he looks. The ignorant masses are so afraid of being seen as something, that they try to ignore the truth, thus there is opposition to the message. In the end, the drama that occurs is the uproar of the crowd, and the Emperor as he continues to stand there naked before them.

Another prime example of the revelation trope is the movie The Matrix. In the matrix, Morpheus makes Neo realize that the world as he knows it is not reality and just a lie. It is simply fragments of a computer program. Morpheus brings Neo into what is the real world, believing that Neo is “the one”. While Morpheus is trying to convince Neo of the real world, the machines which are running this real world attempt to stop him from getting his message across. In this movie, Morpheus can be seen as the prophet. The message which he is attempting to reveal is that the world as Neo knows it is fake. The ignorant masses is almost the entirety of the human race, as they are simply living in a computer program with no idea that what they are living is not reality. The opposition occurs when the machines begin to fight against Neo. In order for Neo to realize that he “the one” he must first accept the message being presented by Morpheus, in which later on he does.
As seen in many other revelation tropes, the revealer can also be the prophet as well because they are usually presenting a message in which others can not see or are too afraid to realize what is really going on. They are usually the ones who are more out spoken and have stronger physical apparel then many others.

In An enemy of the People, there seems to be two types of ignorant masses which is a reoccurring element in a variety of sources. The first group is where people fully deny the revelation and will go to violent extremes to stop it (The general public/compact majority).The second group is people who are affected mentally by the revelation, but do not implemented the revelation in their lives(Petra, mr.stockmann's wife).

Compare/Contrast
In many situations, the prophet can find themselves having to sacrifice their own lives in order to save their disciples life. In this situation, this makes the disciple either realizes they are truly the chosen one or allow them to over come their fears and take control of their inner powers or force. In the movie Star Wars, in the scene when Obi-Wan, Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C3PO are aboard the enemies ship, trying to make their way back to their own ship, Obi-Wan makes it possible for them to return to their ship by beginning a fight. Obi-Wan begins a light saber duel between Darth Vader, which allows the rest of them to get back to their ship safely. Obi-Wan then allows Darth Vader to kill him as he warns him that he will become “more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Obi-Wan sacrificed himself in order to help the rest of them make their way back to the ship. In The Matrix, Morpheus, who is the prophet and is teaching Neo, the disciple, tells the others to escape while he distracts the Agents by fighting them. He knows he will not be able to save himself, for the Agents are way too strong for him to fight alone. Despite knowing that he will most likely die, he chooses it is more important to let Neo get away then to save himself. Both sacrifices, by both Morpheus and Obi-Wan, became a much more impacting factor on the life of the disciple. When Morpheus allows himself to be captured by the Agents, it inspired Neo to take action. Early, Neo had been somewhat reluctant to completely take part in the Matrix. However, once they learn that Morpheus is in trouble, and has allowed himself to be captured, Neo becomes more willing to help, and he decides that he is going to return and save Morpheus from the Agents, despite how dangerous it may be. Just as Neo was inspired to rescue Morpheus, after Obi-Wan had sacrificed himself, Luke becomes more connected with the force. After the others escape and return to the Rebel Alliance, Luke agrees to join the assault team which is working to destroy the Death Star. While Luke is on his way to the center of the Death Star, it’s discovered that Darth Vader has sent out ships to destroy Luke on his way. Seconds before the Death Star is about to destroy the Rebel base, Luke hears Obi-Wans voice telling him to “use the force”. Luke then fires the shot that destroys the death star and saves the Rebel base. In both situations, it is not until something bad happens to the prophet that the disciple begins to truly take action and pursue the message they were given in the revelation. It was not until Morpheus was about to be killed, that Neo began to truly fight back in the Matrix. In Star Wars, it was not until Obi-Wan were killed, that Luke truly accepted to use the force, which is the message Obi-Wan wanted to get across. Something negative must happen to the Prophet that will then encourage the disciple to take action of the revelation on their own without the guidance of the prophet.

In the Matrix, Neo, a computer programmer, finds out that he is the chosen one to fight the agents that made the matrix. Morpheus told him that if he wanted to know and observe the matrix himself he would have to swallow the red pill. He told Neo that he must choose if he wants to eat the red pill or blue pill. He decides to pick the red pill, which entirely changes the way he looks at life. Once he takes the red pill, he’s in a red liquid pod where the machines unplug him and pushes him down a tube into a stream of water. This symbolizes his rebirth into the real world. This rebirth is also seen in the Feed where after the talk Titus had with Violet's dad, Titus went to the drop tube to his house. The drop tube signify rebirth. In these books, when the person is reborn, he/she does not fully understand the revelation. The person is an infant mentally because he/she is still ignorant and is only introduced to part of the revelation. There is a very long process that people need to undergo in order to come to a deep understanding of the revelation. This infant goes through many obstacles that may affect the way he/she may perceive the revelation. This process of rebirth into adulthood is seen in our lives and in other novels.

In the novel Feed, all the teens have feeds incorporated into their brains. The government has control over their minds by transmitting advertisements and giving them what they desire. The teens are taught in school how to use the feeds to buy items. However, in the book Violet is the only girl who resists the feed. She does this by not buying any items that are exposed to her. Because she doesn’t buy any items, her feed malfunctions to the point where she dies. Titus learns an important message from Violet that that the people are taken over by the government through the implementation of feeds into peoples brains. People are brainwashed by advertisements which intrigue them to buy clothes and accessories. As a result, people don't think for themselves and do not realize that the civilization crashing.- Stephanie Chiu. Violet expressed this message in a conversation she had with Titus. She told him that she was outraged that people who get feeds at an early age are “ ignorant self-centered idiots” because they are brainwashed by the government to value the lies. Titus at this point felt degraded because he did get his feed at an early age. Titus realizes this message when Violet will die in minutes. He tells her all the news he find out about the civilization and proves to Violet that he understands the truth about civilization. Feed is similar to An Enemy of the people because the ignorant masses understand the message to some degree when something tragic happens to the prophet. In Feed, when Violet dies, Titus gets the message. Similarly, in an Enemy of the people Mr. Stockmann’s wife only supports him when the whole town has turned their back on him.


In the movie “Foxfire” the revelation message is that one needs to stand up for themselves and others. The teacher was sexually harassing one of the students and Angelina’s character “Legs” gets a group of the female students and the beat up the teacher. The message that the students send to the teacher is that if you hurt one of us you hurt all of us. The way Legs stood up for the several other girls in the school is just the same way as Neo had to stand up to the evil agents in order to save Morpheus. Both Neo and Legs where in fact out powered because Legs is just a teenager and Neo feels as if he is just a normal human, they both find the faith and courage within them in order to stand up to what is most important to them, and that affect others lives as well.

In The Allegory of The Cave Socrates creates an unacceptable situation in which there are humans living in an underground cave, inwhich they have been living there since childhood and have their legs and necks chained so they cannot move, and can only see images that are being projected by a fire and a built wall that allows the images that are being projected to be seen.

Analysis/ Theory
While looking at many different Revelations / revelation tropes there are many new important aspects that are being presented to the audience that is more then seen by the naked eye. One theory I believe or came up with is “the disciple seems to always be denying that they are the one, but they are never against the actual message that is being presented to them by the prophet”. Throughout the movies “Star Wars” and “The Matrix”, both Neo and Luke have the feeling that they might be the chosen ones but they are both too afraid to take the responsibility. They must need someone to convince them and give them guidance that they have the powers and force and must figure out how to accept it.

Also I began to realize that the prophet is always much stronger than the disciple.Also in many situations of the revelation trope, there is a trader involved that is trying to stop the prophet from getting his message across to his disciple. This is usually known as the Judaist trope, which is the trader / betrays the good side and prefers the bad side. In Star wars, Dark Vader was the prophet until he became evil leader and tries to stop Luke from accepting the powers and defeating him. While in The Matrix, the trader felt as if his revelation was not the same as what he has been told by Morpheus and then gives up and tries to kill Neo and allows Morpheus to get killed.

In The Allegory of The Cave Socrates creates an unacceptable situation in which there are humans living in an underground cave, inwhich they have been living there since childhood and have their legs and necks chained so they cannot move, and can only see images that are being projected by a fire and a built wall that allows the images that are being projected to be seen. Here the fire projects the images that these prisoners can only see, and i feel as if this is a way to interpret as our brains giving off missleading images of what we want to see only. for these viticms or prisoners the cave and the shadow puppets is their real world or reality. What they see from the shadows is what they have been seeing or experiencing since childhood, this is how they believe the world truly is nothing beyhond what they know. This is basically saying these people are blind from the real society and cant see the truth as well as their are people today to ignorant to believe anything else but they know is right an accept nothing more. Connecting this to the real world movie theather projects images in which we as viewers tend to think are real and get distracted or misleaded about what is truly going on like not being able to find the message that is really being sent out.

In The Song " The Thieves of the Night" by Black Star i feel the message that is being presented is that we as people are not living our lives free and that we are too afraid to accept the truth about life so we are hiding from it. A line that Mos Def Had said in this song that stood out to me was "Still livin like MEntal Slaves" i feel this line means that we are allowing the media and other things to determine or alternate our true feelings and opinions. Also that we cannot think for oursleves and we allow the government to make decisions for us. Another line that stood out to me the most was "the life is temporary but the soul is eternal- Mos Def". i feel this line means that although the physical parts of our body are gone once we die, the soul our essense still lives on and continues its own journey. Also because we are hiding in the night afraid of life, this could also mean that because many are afraid to die, we need to understandstand that we still live on just not here on earth with others.

Towards the end of class we were able to create a new Redefinement of Revelation/tropes. we came up with the follwing:
ignornant folks
are in an unacceptable situation
when a prophet
shares a message
or redefinition
& redemption
despite opposition
and betrayal
people must choose status quo or revelation
and lives are changed as a result.

These were the major points or keys of the revelation but as i look on i realized their were other key points that could have been added to the list. I noticed that in many revelation stories the prophet as once or already encountered and had experienced the unacceptable situation. also the diciple needs to have or be conviced that they are the actual chosen one or have the feeling but are to scared to accept.

CONCLUSION
"There are thousands,or maybe millions of revelation messages out there. They're in books, movies, songs even in our daily life. That one thing that you thought was wrong but tried not to think twice about it because no one wants to be an outcast. People have all this access to so many messages basically screaming at them to wake up and fight the power, the "norm" and make a change. But most just sit by and do nothing, because they are afraid to take action for themselves.Since people really do lead our lives mostly like a heard of sheep, we need a leader. And while our "profits" and "renegades" keep getting killed and thrown in jail we really won't have one. - Another reason why no one has woken up is because our generation has lost its drive to try to make a change." Lilly Torres. Something that could happen is that we would have not one, but many people leading so there would be a group effort and not so much focus on one person to be the "prophet." this can be connected back to Andy's speech in class about engines, if one person or several people take action on one little situation or problem, this might not exactly stop the entire problem but it might slow down the progress the situation. Revelations and messages can be found at anytime or point of your life but the question is are you ready to accept the challenge.


Worked Cited
Derrick Jensen. The Culture of Make Believe. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004.

Foxfire. Dir. Annette Haywood-Carter. Perf. Hedy Burress and Angelina Jolie. Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1996.

Hans Christian Anderson. Emperor’s New Clothes. 2008.

Henrik Ibsen. Enemy of the People. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1999.

The Matrix. Dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie- Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano. Warner Bros, 1999.

The Allegory of the Cave (the Republic, Book VII) -Plato- 360 B.C.E- Excerpt 3

Thieves in the Night- Black Star- Rawkus Records. Rel.6/4/2002