Respond to the following prompts on this wiki page using the "edit" feature.

Make sure to include your username in your response and separate your answers from each other using the "insert horizontal line" button.

See the rubric if you have questions about how you will be graded on your response.

 

Before responding to the prompt below make sure you read the Man Who Folded Himself (course reader), and read the Lecture Notes. Don't forget to cite your information if it is coming from another source. Even if you are paraphrasing (putting information into your own words), you still need to acknowledge where you found that information originally.

 

Prompt:

In your opinion, is Daniel an interesting/effective character, why or why not (explain and be specific) and include what makes him either interesting/effective or not interesting/effective?

In addition, consider the role of this journal. What is the journal's purpose and why do you think Daniel decides to put on the timebelt even after he has read its contents? (explain your answer and be specific)

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Soap

     Dan really is an interesting character, this doesn't mean that I necessarily like him. He's intresting in his thought process of all the different  timelines he's creating by changing the past and what happens to all the other hims. Then of course there's the whole orgy marathons which are all really just complicated masturbation. That's actually pretty twisted. I mean, he was really going at it. He went so far with it infact, that he basically became his entire family. All the while writing in a journal that he told himself to write. But the journal is important. It's a way to give yourself the choice to end the cycle of self sexing and all the other problems. He has basically told the next him, everything that will ensue from the wearing of this belt. This way, he can make an informed decision. Of course he chose to keep it going anyway, but that's to be expected. The writer told him he could change what he didn't like, and at least his life wouldn't be boring anymore. All the boredom and mediocrity that comes with  the spending of two thousand dollars a week. These were his thoughts at the time, being misunderstood by his peers and running out of things to want or do. Well now he can have lots of hims to relate to i guess.

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Mike

 

I think Daniel is interesting and effective because he is relatable. He is not too smart but just dumb enough to find interesting and approachable. He is also interesting because he begins to carry out many peoples desire, and that is to seemingly acquire money without much work. He addresses this issue first and foremost...he is going to go to the future to get the horse winners names in order to bet on some horses in the past (to make a quick fortune of course). He is also effective in this way because he is motivated by an urge to become rich but not limited to becoming rich instantly, which is a device used within the story in order to keep it moving. It is also interesting because we are getting to hear his thoughts on the situation through the first person narration. 

 

He puts it on even after he has read the contents because he decides that he must carry on his legacy and continue his life cycle in order to avoid becoming what he most fears, an old lonely bag of bones. The journal serves as a reminder that all actions have consequences. Even so, he must carry on his life in search of happiness.  

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Arielle

 

I think Daniel is a very interesting character. We see him in two different dimensions. He is interesting because he helps himself figure out the future and helps himself with the past and the present. He is the base of this story and as we read his inscriptions in his diary we envision his journey with his other self.

In the beginning of the story Daniel’s Uncle Jim asks Daniel to make a journal to record all the important things that happen to him everyday or twice a week.  He tells him that he will only be cheating himself if he doesn’t make it truthful and personal. His uncle tells him to make a journal merely for himself and himself only.  The journals purpose is to help him understand the time belt.

I believe Daniel put on the time belt because he was curious to know if the belt was the real deal, and actual time machine. He knew if the belt really did send him through time that it could be very interesting as well as a new experience. He could do things in his life that he never got to before. He realizes that he now had the opportunity to win a lot of money and go many different places with the belt. Being rich and traveling while knowing everything that is coming to him in the future probably seemed like an enjoyable plus experience.  

 

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Yat 

 

     I think Daniel is definitely an interesting character.  This is a time travel story or a situation that I never could think of:  A story of a manipulation of one character, interacting with past and future of himself, making money by time travel, a Daniel that she altered a future himself into her, making out with a future herself, and reproduced himself by having sex with himself.  Daniel is one character in the story; meanwhile he is also Danny, Don, Diane, and Uncle Jim. 

 

     The character Daniel has been trying to analyze himself and he wasn’t happy with what had happened in the content and he tried to change the way it was going to happen, but at the end he accepted to wear the belt and repeated himself.  He realized that it was potentially inside himself, and it would happen eventually, because that is his fate, and he cannot escape and the travel time loop happened when he put on the time travel belt. 

 

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Joe

 

     Daniel was an effective character. He was interesting to a point, and then took a random turn into shocking. He is effective as he questions his actions and the consequences that stem from them, he is determined to prove he has free will and disproves the fixed-ness of his timeline, and he makes it clear to the reader what is going on in terms of his time traveling. He proves his actions are not fixed when he decides to wear a different kind of jacket, and when he bets more money at the track. He went from being interesting, messing around in time and such to shocking when he was banging the other versions himself. That leads him to become his own son later on, which means he had sex with his mother/father/daughter/son since they are all him. That was weird when it hit me. The logic makes sense, but I wish it didn’t.

            The journal’s purpose is to serve as a warning in order to spare Daniel some of the loneliness that he has felt and that he may easily witness his own death, and warn him that his actions can change the world so drastically that he cannot function within them. It is a warning first and foremost. I believe that Daniel decides to wear it anyway because he has free will, and by reading it, will not have the same kind of journey, meaning that the journal could easily prevent some of those feelings, or at least provide some sort of solace as he won’t be the only one who has traversed time in this way and not the only who has felt that way as a result.

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Cristina

 

     One of the reasons why Daniel is such an interesting character in The Man Who Folded Himself is because he offers insights as to how the average man or woman would respond put in his situation. It is an honest portrayal, full of self-fulfillment and instant gratification that I think many, including myself, would have a difficult time to resist at least once. He is testing the boundaries of time-travel from an every-man point of view. This could be an important step every time traveler must go through to understand the discipline they may have to practice in order to apply a new standard of ethics necessary for time-travel.

     The journal served two purposes for our time-traveler. First, it recorded and maintained some kind of order in the chaos of time-travel. Daniel began to develop a sense of detachment to the world; the daily journal grounded him to his own existence. Secondly, the journal had the possibility to act as a manuscript for the next Danny to live out what he would consider an ideal existence.

     The lure of the timebelt is too temping to resist. With it, despite warning, there are too many alternative endings to one life. At this point in Daniel’s existence, committing to just a singe storyline seems like a mundane act because he has not suffered severe consequences as a result of the timebelt. The possibility of living out an even better existence, independent from a past existence should he go back far enough, it still out there.

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Andi

 

Daniel is an interesting character, as well as strange and almost scary. He is himself, and his uncle, and his own lover, as well as other characters in the story. It is interesting how he is able to help his past self figure out the future. He is strange in the decisions he decides to make, he does things differently that are written, struggling to prove that nothing is set in stone and that he does control his own. He wears a different jacket and bets differently. This is very effective in showing the reader what a common man would do. If someone told us that our future had all ready been decided we would of course try and prove them wrong.  The strange part being that he could have proven his future as his to control by not time traveling at all. The scary part comes in with all of the decisions he makes, would one really chose to have sex with one’s self given the opportunity? Is that truly how a common man would react? 

 

The journals served the purpose of recording all of Daniels experiences, and keep a sense of order that his mind could not. After doing so much he begins to become detached from his world and the journal also helps to keep him grounded. Remembering where he comes from and what has really gotten him to where he is now. It almost plays the role of the companion, just as Rose does in “Doctor Who”. 

 

I think that Daniel decided to put on the time belt, mostly to prove the journal wrong. To show that a man’s free will is stronger than any writings and any fate that is thrust upon him. Sheer curiosity also plays a role, the simple thought, is this real, and is this really possible, could I perhaps make a better life for myself some place? Putting on the belt however serves the opposite purpose. He proves the journal right by beginning the time loop, and creating massive amounts of trouble and paradoxes.

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Wonwoong

In my opinion, Daniel is interesting and effective character. Although Daniel is not a scientific or theoretical expert who knows about time travel or timeline, he tries to control the power of time travel and find out his companion in his other multiverse. He looks like us. I was so impressed that Daniel is a normal person like us. He tries to earn money through his time belt, and also feels lonely. Moreover, he tries to find love and existence of himself. Like this, the writer shows me the change of his internal thought and mind, and it makes me thinking of Daniel as an interesting character. I think the purpose of journal is for himself. He wants to know the existence of him, to make ideal utopia, to warn him through time travel. Also, the reason why Daniel decides to put on the time belt is that he wants to earn money because he goes to the future and come back with a newspaper to earn money. Moreover he wants to solve his doubt of the time belt.

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Christopher

     Daniel was an effective character because he was very relatable. He had no special abilities and he wasn’t particularly smart. He didn’t invent his own time machine either; Daniel became the passenger in a way, the unwilling companion to Uncle Jim.  It makes the reader believe that maybe one day his late uncle could leave them a magical belt promising endless wealth and power. This book basically abandoned any explanation of the time travel device but didn’t shy away from the paradoxes that arise. I found that part of the book very effective, the Dan’s and Don’s and Danny’s created an interesting interplay.  The journal was an effective device. It definitely helped the reader relate to the story.  It was the story that was the diary and the reader is reading the travelers own words, just as Daniel is. I think when he was finished and decided to put the belt on he was alluding to the way time travel and reality are all about the mind that perceives it. The comparison to a painting with numerous under-paintings was very effective. Even if it doesn’t appear to have existed from the perspective of the current existence doesn’t mean it never existed. Confusing but basically the only thing that really matters is the travelers perceptions, they are as real as the things he perceives and they area all that will remain when he leaves.  They are all he can take with him, and they will still remain no matter were or when he is. And when Daniel puts on the belt he is just laying that first stone, the mental foundation to set him up for a lifetime of incredible experiences.  Near the end of the book Daniel mentions the old withered brain that though gallivanted through time like a walk in the park still aged, still grew withered and old and eventually dies. This was a very interesting take on the time travel story, dealing almost solely with the morals and mental effects on the traveler. I enjoyed it and the thoughts my brain had while I was reading it.

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Kelvin k

 

The main character for 'The Man Who Folded Himself', Daniel Jamieson Eakins inherits a belt that allows him to travel time. His character seems interesting and also a poor and lonely. He is very isolated like god, which it seems his exitence cannot be related any worlds. This results in a series of time paradoxes, which are only resolved the existence of multiple universe and history through using his character. Eakins, who repeatedly encounters alternate versions of himself, finds himself in progressively more bizarre situations, and ends up in an even more complex situation. Through traveling times, he encounters difficult situations for himself to figure what is his existence and what is he most desire.

     Eakins repeatedly meets himself and has different sex such as an opposite-sex, which it is my favorite part of him. Most popular influence of character is uniqueness such as his paranoid schizophrenia that helps to think his character is very strong and full of imagination. Still this influence of his characteristic is dragging him into great separation from existing world. This will lead him to think everything by his own strength which it will be too difficult in reality. Since the power of time travel is giving strong maintenance of experiencing different livings. Through gathering experiences, he seems to understand the true nature and true identity about him.

      'The Man Who Folded Himself' deals the psychological mind of humanity, which it challenges the knowledge of meaning of the time travel.     

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Julia 

     Daniel is an interesting and effective character, but not because he in inherently so. This story is about the amazing and introspective experiences that an average man can have when given the ability to time travel. He is interesting because he is a flawed, somewhat generic human being, and yet has (and can) accomplish great and meaningful things in his life because of his unique power. He is effective as an engaging character because his emotional reactions are the same as any other human. He appeals to the mass audience as a relatable, even likable, boy who grows to understand the gift that is his own life and self. 

When we enter the story, it is clearly some time along in the timeline of the belt and his existence. He is raised and supported by his older self, who has clearly traveled back in time and meddled in their own life many times already. He discusses how any mistake he makes will simply be rectified by traveling back earlier in time and changing it. The purpose of his journal is another of these changes that he decides to make for the better. He is constantly experimenting and learning which are the best ways to handle interacting with his past and future selves, and thus decides to try to better himself with a journal. 

I think Daniel decides to put the belt on, even after he has learned of the ups and downs of such an ability, because he realizes this is his one chance at experiencing an extraordinary life. He is given the belt so that he can learn to appreciate the important things in life, and understand why even his own life is a gift to be cherished. Also, if he does not choose to use the belt, we are presented with a paradox. He must accept the belt to be able to travel back in time and give himself the belt. However, he states that there can be no paradoxes because time travel is possible. Thus no matter what choice he makes, it will be rectified by the laws of nature as well as by another possible future self. Whether he chooses to use the belt or not does not matter, as he really has no choice at all, and will, through whatever series of time travel events, come to have the belt in the future, and thus past.