Writing Sample

Audience: Junior and senior marketers in B2B businesses, international

What is the point of reviews and ratings anyway? Their use has changed over time.

Originally, a rating or review was just that. Someone who bought a product or used a service could review it so that others had an idea of what they were getting into before they spent their money. Businesses could publicise their reviews, like the newspaper cutouts that line any Five Guys. Movie studios would put their ratings directly onto the poster to make sure everyone knew it was a 5-star movie.

As search engines became smarter, ratings and reviews became a part of a business’s rank in search. Ebay was especially notorious for this, where enough 4-star ratings could tank an entire online store. 

More recently, ratings and reviews have taken on a new life: as content.

Review Revue is a podcast where comedy writers read customer reviews and create improv sketches about the reviews and the experiences they represent. Gus Johnson (3.3 million subscribers) has a series on his YouTube channel where he and his brothers and friends read reviews for local businesses and laugh about them. Many YouTube channels, like Cody Ko (3.35 million subscribers) and Danny Gonzalez (4.61 million subscribers) seek out Amazon reviews and add their own commentary and jokes on top. Whether or not company names and information are included in these videos is up to the content creator, but either way the products and services that are showcased are often sought out by viewers and listeners.

Content like this shows that your company’s e-reputation matters to more than just you and your customers; it also matters to content creators and their audiences. Whether or not your name is included in this kind of content, this provides a new opportunity to get your brand out there. And now, more than ever, it’s imperative to manage your e-reputation.

Easy ways to manage your e-reputation:

DO Encourage positive reviews. This is the easiest way to start. If you’ve had an enjoyable customer interaction, encourage those customers to leave a review. When I worked retail, our receipts had a link to a survey at the bottom. If we had a positive customer interaction, we’d finish off by showing them the link and writing our name next to it. If we had a negative interaction, we would simply hand the customer their receipt, maybe folding it so they don’t immediately see the survey. The opportunity to leave a review is always there, especially with third-party review services like Google Maps and Yelp. People who’ve had a bad experience are always more likely to leave reviews, so you’ll want to encourage people who could leave a positive review to do so.

DON’T Incentivize positive reviews. Recently, dropshipping influencers have found a new way to incentivize positive reviews: they used 5-star reviews as entries into a contest to win the product their fans were reviewing. You read that right: people were leaving 5-star reviews for a product that they didn’t have, in hopes that they’d get the product for free. There’s a similar practice across Amazon, where companies will offer a free product in exchange for a 5-star review. I recently bought a camera from Amazon and was offered a free battery charger if I left a 5-star review. These types of reviews are incredibly obvious to anyone who actually reads the reviews of a product or service before purchasing. While it may temporarily boost your search results, it’s overall harmful to your company and brand.

DO Respond to all your reviews in a timely manner. Responding to reviews and ratings is a great way to show your customers and potential customers that you’re engaged with them beyond just a transaction. Reviews are a great way to extend your customer service as well as clear up any misunderstandings. We offer the Mobilosoft platform in North America and Australia, where you can manage and respond to your reviews all in one place. Mobilosoft pulls reviews from the most commonly used listings, like Google Maps and Facebook and allows you to either respond, or triage reviews so that local managers can respond. Our research with Mobilosoft shows that simply answering reviews can even raise your rating.

DON’T Ignore comments that you don’t like. You should treat your online customer interactions just like your in-store customer interactions. Your e-reputation, after all, is an extension of your brand. If there are genuine customer issues, you can always address them. The Mobilosoft platform can triage comments so they can be responded to by local, in-store managers or by centralized brand managers. And if there are reviews that seem less than genuine, each platform has a way of reporting spam or fake reviews. Ironically, businesses with a full five-star rating often seem less than trustworthy; as if they’ve messed with their reviews or planted their own fake ones. Instead, a four-star (or even a three-star) rating may seem more trustworthy, especially if the negative reviews are descriptive and the company responds to them.

DO use canned answers for some reviews. If you’re a business that gets a lot of the same reviews, it can be tedious to respond to everyone. So canned answers (responses that are pre-written) can be a great way to reduce the amount of time you spend, while still showing your customers that you’re engaged with their feedback. Having a generic “thank you for recognizing our employee, we’ll pass the feedback on” for reviews that mention someone by name can go a long way. Mobilosoft offers canned responses that can be created and maintained centrally and then implemented across all your locations. This way, your responses can stay on brand, while catering to the specific kinds of feedback you receive. Of course, you can always go the extra mile when it comes to recognizing employees, but a form response to these kinds of reviews really shows appreciation to the customer.

DON’T use canned answers for every review. We’ve all seen those social media accounts that respond to every mention (positive or negative) with “please email our customer service for more information”. This is a great way to lose customers because it shows that the company is just not engaged with what their customers have to say. Instead, companies can take the time to identify common reviews they get and craft responses to those reviews. I used the example of staff compliments above, but even saying “we’ll look into your situation with [insert local branch], please DM us with more info” looks better than a generic response to everything.

Your e-reputation is incredibly important today. If you’d like to learn more about how you can manage your online presence more effectively (and faster) feel free to learn more about the Mobilosoft platform here. If you’re ready to get started, contact us today.

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Audience: Users seeking medical treatment

Chiropractic

Chiropractors can treat pain or injuries arising from work or household chores to injuries due to repetitive strains, sprains, accidents, or sports.

A hands-on, non-invasive, and drug-free practice that safely and effectively helps relieve pain and improve the body’s overall function. Chiropractors use various treatments depending on your needs: from manual, hands-on adjustment techniques to soft tissue therapy.

Clinical Counselling

Our clinical social worker has experience in trauma-informed therapeutic practice. We will take a collaborative approach, working with you to understand your goals and build a treatment plan.

We specialise in youth, individual, and couples counselling drawing on a variety of approaches including narrative therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness-based therapy.

Kinesiology & Exercise Prescription

Our kinesiologists apply exercise and movement science to promote health and well-being; prevent, manage, and rehabilitate injuries, treat illness and chronic disease, restore function, and optimise human performance in the workplace, clinical settings, sport, and fitness.

Kinesiologists are the only human movement specialists who use science and research to offer movement as medicine, to any person with a health or fitness goal who wants a hands-on, personalised approach.

Soft Tissue Release & Massage

Soft tissue massage can provide immediate relief to pain and stiff muscles and help to restore flexibility.

Our experienced practitioners can help identify the causes of stiffness and pain and manipulate muscles, ligaments, skin, and other soft tissue to promote flexibility. Pressure and stretching can also encourage neural activity to help with long-term pain and posture.

Zumba

Zumba is a fun and trendy way to promote flexibility and cardiac health.

One Physio’s Zumba-certified instructors offer a comprehensive experience for a variety of activity levels, including seniors and those recovering from injury. They cater their movements and pace to target specific ranges of motion to promote flexibility as well as raise your heart rate.

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Audience: Self

Spelling

I am a stickler when it comes to spelling my name: four letters is not that hard. In the age of the internet, very little pisses me off more than people misspelling my name in messages. My name is AqilDhanani on every social media platform, and yet I still receive DMs where my name is misspelt. In many cases, someone would have to spell my name correctly at least once in order to send me a message with it spelled wrong. And the entire time you’re typing the message, the correct spelling of my name is staring you in the face. I’ve even gone so far as to set up filters to catch common misspellings of my name and move them straight to the archive. Have I missed important work emails because of that filter? Nothing so important they couldn’t spell my name right. Spelling someone’s name correctly, even if it’s a goofy “Braedyn”-type name, is a simple courtesy that can’t be forgotten in a time when our names are literally everywhere.

There is one exception, though.

In class, we were discussing how we express ourselves as Muslims in America. We watched the following video, where Hasan Minhaj talks about a Muslim Makeover, how Muslims can hide their identity in America. It’s a joke, obviously, but he does make some points.

I want to talk about his first point: changing your name. I have family members who’ve changed their name in order to be more successful in business: for example, Nooruddin changed his name to Dean. But talking to a bunch of high schoolers, the prospect of changing your name to fit in seemed a bit far-fetched. But then I saw it: my Starbucks cup sitting on the table.

Sure, I didn’t go off and change my name to Alex, like I wanted to in grade school. But, I was complicit in hiding my real name from the world. Did I do it out of shame for my heritage? Was I afraid of being outed as a Muslim to these Pumpkin Spice loving yoga moms? Am I insecure about my own identity? No, no, and yeah but that’s not important right now.

When I go to Starbucks, and they ask me my name (which only happens about half the time) I always say the same thing: “/’ʌː.kɪl/ A-K-I-L”. It hasn’t always been that way. I used to pronounce my name correctly and spell my name correctly, but I learned not to do that. I’m not ashamed of my own name. I spell it incorrectly because when an English-speaking person sees the letter Q, their brain shorts out and starts leaking out of their ear. Not only is brain matter on the Starbucks counter a health risk, it also delays me getting my venti hot almond chai by that much. Also, the purpose of my name on a Starbucks cup isn’t for reading (they’re not going to match the cup to my photo ID to give me my drink), i’s for calling out over the gaggle of teenage girls and their too many frappuccinos. By spelling my name with a K, I can ensure that what’s called out is closer to my actual name than whatever people think a Q without a U sounds like. 

“But”, I hear you saying, “there are different ways to spell that name.” South Asians tend to spell the name with a K because glottal consonants (sounds you make with the throat) don’t really exist in South Asian languages. Urdu has them, but that’s ‘cuz they borrowed them (along with some fricatives) from Persian. When I tell people my name in Jamatkhana, they tend to automatically spell it A K H I L, which looks like it would be pronounced /’ʌː.xɪl/ or /ʌː’xil/ which brings me to pronunciation

Pronunciation

Recently, since moving to a new place and meeting new people, I’ve heard more than once people ask how my name is actually pronounced. I usually respond with: “well, it's pronounced /ʕɑ’qiːl/ but no one can say that, so /‘ʔɑː.kɪl/ is fine.” I realize typing that out make the joke incomprehensible, but I promise it gets some laughs in person. My name is Arabic, it’s written like this: عاقل. Unfortunately, Arabic has some phonemes (mouth-sounds) that don’t exist in English. And more unfortunately, my name has two of those phonemes. I have the ق which is pronounced like you’re trying to choke yourself with your own tongue, and I have the ع which is pronounced like you’re succeeding in choking yourself with your own tongue. I’ve only heard my name correctly pronounced in the first go by two people: one of my Arabic professors and the customs guy in Dubai.

Growing up, I got called /ʌ’kil/ (uh-KEEL) a lot in my 92% white school in middle America. But at home, my parents and brothers called me /’ʌː.kɪl/ (UH-kill). And my sister, because she likes to over-enunciate, called me /’æ.kɪl/ (AH-kill, but the AH like you say when someone pokes you in the eye). I’ve since split the difference and usually go by /‘ʔɑː.kɪl/ (AH-kill, but AH like the doctor is shoving a popsicle stick in your mouth). Interacting with new people was always tough growing up. While /ʌ’kwil/ (uh-QUILL) was the most common, I also got uh-QUEEL, AY-quill, AY-cool, Aku, along with countless others. During role-call, I eventually resorted to saying “here” whenever the substitute teacher inhaled sharply.

Meaning

I’ve known the meaning of my name almost as long as I’ve known my name. Growing up, I was told that it means “wise”, although that usually translated further to “wise-ass” due to my habit of correcting people. In university, I learned about noun structures and found out that my name technically means “person who has ʿaql” or “intellect”. While that can technically be used for any cognizant being, it’s used as a defining characteristic: i.e. if you’re defined by you’re intellect, you could be ʿaqil.

This is part of the reason spelling is so important. If we’re taking Romanized spelling seriously (which you should never do), “Akil” would be “person who eats” and “Akhil” would be “person who is iced”? I’m not 100% sure on those, I just threw their consonant stems into Google Translate (another thing you should never do). Arabic is a phonetic language, and even small, seemingly insignificant changes can bring bigger issues. That’s what the name means, but what does it mean to me? I mean, wouldn’t a rose by any other name still smell as sweet?

Lots of people believe that names carry a certain power over your personality. And while studies have shown that people are treated differently because of their name, and babies are sometimes named a certain way based on how they look. There’s nothing more that correlated anecdotes about a name actually playing a part in one’s “destiny”. What follows is one of those anecdotes.

Sure, my name is associated with smart people, and I try to be smart. But who doesn’t try to be smart? Who doesn’t constantly learn, at least by accident? It would be like a baby named “Jasmine” when she stops pooping in her diaper. Sure, she lived up to her name by being fragrant, but it was an inevitability.

I never felt that strong of a connection with my own name until just last year, when I was reading (you guessed it) Justice and Remembrance, by Reza Shah Kazemi.

• Being true to one’s intellect—to the treasures buried deep within it and not just to the rational functions operative on its surface—is tantamount to being ‘spiritual’. For Imam ʿAlī, the ‘true intellectual’ (al-ʿāqil) is one who not only thinks correctly but also acts ethically, and, at the deepest level, one who seeks to realize the ultimate Reality. The intellectual is defined as one who ‘puts all things in their proper place’ (Justice and Remembrance, p. 35)

That’s right! Hazrat ʿAly talked about what it means to be a real Aqil. Obviously my mind was blown when I read that, and so was the rest of the book club (I say ‘book club’ to make it sound like it wasn’t just me and one other person). Not only was this a more in-depth definition than “person who has intellect” or “wise-ass”, but this was goals. This was life-goals!

Now I’m not about to say that I’ve “lived up to my name”; I’m far from that. But I have something to aspire too; I can try to live up to my own name. And, speaking of “seek[ing] to realize the ultimate Reality”, check out my other blog where I endeavor to do just that.

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Audience: Isma’ilis aged 45 - 80

Extract of Script: As we’ve seen so far, God embodies life and honour and creation, things that we consider to be good. But God also embodies destruction and death and dishonour, things that we consider to be bad. So how do we deal with this conflicting notion of God being both the essence of good and the essence of bad? I want to turn again to Justice and Remembrance and Imam ‘Aly’s explanation: “In the Imam’s spiritual vision of tawḥīd, one perceives—according to one’s capacity—an ultimate reality which not only ‘has no second’ but which also has no moral ‘opposite’. For the goodness that is proper to God is not the moral opposite of evil, rather, it is situated on a different plane altogether, that of al-Ḥaqq, the absolutely Real, the only ‘opposite’ to which is unreality or nothingness… In other words, goodness is identified in its essence with the Creator, while evil is a modality of the created.In other words, goodness is identified in its essence with the Creator, while evil is a modality of the created” (Justice and Remembrance, p. 75-6).

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Audience: Isma’ilis of all ages

Extract of Script: If we want things to be better, we need to play our part. But what does that mean? The first is to give ourselves a break. Sometimes we’re so hard on ourselves, so judgemental, so demanding, and so merciless that we beat ourselves up, second guess ourselves, and make it impossible to observe, learn, and grow. As human beings, we are necessarily imperfect and we will make mistakes -- many of them. One very important point to keep in mind, as we evaluate and judge our behaviour, is that the picture that we get from the internet, the picture that we get from social media especially, is not a complete picture. It never tells the complete story and almost always oversimplifies or glamorises the reality behind the images we’re seeing or the messages we’re reading. Comparing ourselves to what we see in social media is a surefire way to come up short and be unhappy. We are taught that God is all-merciful and all-forgiving, so we can start by showing ourselves a little bit of compassion and mercy when we’re having a hard time.

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Audience: casual audience, non-Muslim, estimated between ages 13 and 30

Excerpt of Script: For those of you who don’t know, there is some controversy about how the Qur’an was compiled: how it got from a verbal message to a written book. But what is not controversial is that the Qur’an of the year 656 is functionally identical to the Qur’an that we have today. There have been some updates in the last 1400 years, like adding in short vowels and punctuation and other grammatical marks and moving the “bismillah” to a non-numbered verse in all but two of the chapters. But, word for word, it is the same. Any time a Qur’an is reproduced, it is heavily scrutinised for accuracy to make sure that nothing in the original text is changed. And these publications go under even more scrutiny when you are translating them into different languages because Arabic does not translate easily.

Audience: 5-year old child and parents, non-Muslim

Excerpt of Script: Just like we need to fill gas in our cars or recharge the batteries in our toys, we also need to recharge ourselves. So we will eat food to fill up our bodies; we will read books and go to school to fill up our brains; we can play video games or watch TV to fill up our time; and we can fill up our hearts by spending time with family and friends. But with all the ‘filling up’ we sometimes forget to fill up our soul. Ramadan is a month in the lunar calendar that’s very important to Muslims. You see, Muslims believe that their holy book, the Qur’an, was revealed by God starting in the month of Ramadan and they also believe that important parts of the Bible and the Torah were also revealed during Ramadan. So if this is the month that heaven is open and letting stuff down to earth, it might be a good time to fill up our souls. 

Audience: high level academia

A man stands motionless in his living room. To his left: an old couch, the faded brown fabric sagging in the middle. Beyond that, on a dull green wall, hangs a painting of an unidentified boat. He leans against the matching wall to his right, careful not to shift his weight too far. Behind him a tall wall, the colour he once called “sand blue,” hosts a door he’s never walked through. The ceiling fades into darkness. In front of him, the house lights shine so bright that he cannot make out a single face in the crowd. 

A woman sits at the edge of her seat, entrenched in the family affair before her. The home she sees plants its familiarity, its history, into her mind. The wife, an old friend, scolds her son. She raptly recalls how much the boy has grown. The husband stands aside, drawing cautiously from his empty pipe. It’s an unhealthy habit, but she finds it hard to imagine him without it in his hand. The son, building up his courage, replies with wit and the woman finds herself applauding.

In any play, the actors find themselves surrounded on three sides by walls, or at least their facades. The audience finds themselves likewise encompassed in three walls, curving their attention to the stage. Just as the walls of a theatre confine the audience and show in the same space, juxtaposed opposite each other, a reader focuses on a story contained within the confines of a book. One wall separates the two, audience from actor, reality from fantasy: the fourth wall. The fourth wall does not restrain as the other walls do. Its function is to allow the audience, or the reader, to traverse into the world which the playwright or author has created. Occasionally, the actors can “break the wall” by referring to the world that exists outside their confines, giving the audience a new perspective on the piece. On even fewer occasions, the playwright can dismantle the fourth wall entirely, allowing for the audience to explore not only the performance, but the act of performance itself. Samuel Beckett is one such playwright. However, Beckett also performs this feat within his prose works, inviting the reader to investigate the act of writing in addition to the written piece.

The action known as “breaking the fourth wall” has found new footing in movies, television shows, and books, but its origin stems from “[t]he theatrical device… wherein onstage actors acknowledge the presence of the audience,” typically with verbal interaction (Davies 86). The phenomenon has been studied by playwright Bertolt Brecht and theoretician of theatrical socialist realism Konstantin Stanislavski, among others. For Brecht, engaging the separation between scene and audience helps to preserve the distinction between the reality of the audience and the fantasy of the actors. “Brecht’s use of the device is intended to interrupt the cathartic, emphatic response of the audience when confronted with emotional intrigue, in order to restore a critical, distanced form of observation” (Davies 87). Brecht’s fourth wall preserves the sanctity of the performance as a performance, and reinforces the audience’s interpretation of the events both within and outside of the contexts of the provided setting. The fourth wall is meant to provide a window for the audience to experience the performance while separating the audience physically and metaphysically so they do not become engrossed in the world performed. The break then reminds the audience of the wall’s existence.

Stanislavski’s fourth wall functions in the reverse direction. “Stanislavski wants to protect the actors from the disturbing presence of the audience's reality--to protect the fragile reality of the stage which the actors inhabit. Brecht, on the other hand, wants to protect the audience from having their own reality superseded by the fantasised reality of the stage” (Davies 90). Here, the wall protects the audience from accepting the reality presented in the performance into their own reality instead of, as Brecht suggests, imposing the reality of the audience onto the stage.

Samuel Beckett is not unfamiliar with the concept of the fourth wall; his “plays feature numerous instances of the fourth-wall break… This is due to the lack of a static conception of the fourth wall in Beckett's works, and to the unconventional ways in which he uses the fourth-wall break” (Davies 90). The trope of the fourth wall break arose when actors on stage made reference to or interacted with members of the audience. Beckett takes the trope further by allowing his actors to interact with the act of playwriting itself, “explor[ing] the metaphysical space of the stage without making a direct connection with the reality of the audience” (Davies 101). Beckett contrasts the frameworks set up by Brecht and Stanislavski by forgoing the audience in favour of the author.  “Beckett systematically cancels out the social, political, and philosophical significance that became attached to the device in Brecht's theatrical aesthetics” (Davies 96). Here, we have to separate the fourth wall break from the performance proper in order to see how they work in tandem. Beckett reinforces the social, political, and philosophical significance of his work, by allowing the audience to engage with the space between and around the stage and the audience instead of simply the two poles.

Nathaniel Davies uses a number of Beckett’s plays, some officially performed, others concealed for a time. “The humour of these lines [from Beckett’s Human Wishes] can be compared to the several "narratological jokes"--ironic comments on the narrator's fabrication of the story he is presenting as truth--that Beckett would include in prose works” (Davies 91). Human Wishes can serve as an example of Beckett interacting with the space between and around the stage and the audience with his actors, namely the author and his text. Beckett understands, just as Brecht and Stanislavski understand, that the reality presented on the stage is a reality, regardless of its miscibility with the reality of the audience. Beckett seeks to subvert this distinction, not through a physical barrier, the spatial interaction between actor and audience, but through a metaphysical barrier between creator and creation: playwright and play.

This subversion of the audience serves to further separate their perceived realities from the realities of the performance. “The audience who really believes they are watching a series of intimate exchanges should wait until they've left the theatre to applaud” or make their criticisms (Davies 89). Beckett constantly reinforces this disjunction, allowing the audience to engage with the performance as it unfolds. Davies notes how the prevalence of Beckett’s practice grows over time, with a particular shift in Waiting for Godot, in his plays as well as his prose. Beckett uses the same methodology, varied for the medium, to remind the reader of the fabrication of the story presented in his prose.

When presented with a written work, just as when presented with a performance, the reader opts to suspend a certain level of disbelief in order to participate in the realities of the story. Just as the edge of the stage acts as a barrier between worlds in theatre, the physical page holds the reader from fully immersing in the world presented in the text: try as they might, readers cannot force their physical bodies through the printed page. However, much like the fourth wall on a stage, the page can be transcended from the inside. Beckett, through his descriptors, through his constant re-articulation of the abnormality of his world, forces himself through the page as an author, reminding the readers to maintain the separation between their reality and the one Beckett has crafted. Beckett breaks the fourth wall in the way that Brecht and Stanislavski both describe: in order to remind the audience of their separation from the events of the story and in order to protect the world of the audience from the world the author has created. Beckett as created this avenue for discourse with his impeccable self awareness, which is extremely prevalent in his novels. 

Davies provides an in-depth analysis of Beckett’s plays, touching briefly on his prose works. Barbara Hardy delves more into the prose works of Beckett, particularly his selfawareness, which is what breaks through the pages’ “wall” and allows for the discourse Beckett creates in his plays, with his novels. “The self-analysis makes a seemingly random survey of the main narrative elements of symbol, surface, particularity and themes” (Hardy 225). The survey that Beckett weaves into his narrative allows the reader to critically engage with the text without the temporal separation that Brecht refers to with the audience’s applause (Davies 89). It prevents the reader from losing a sense of their own reality by always keeping the reality of the text at a distance, quelling the fear Stanislavski holds. “Beckett is interested in inspecting the world. He's self-consciousness about the literary forms that tradition has set up, codified, and analysed extends also to the way language works” (Hardy 229). Not only does Beckett explore the world he’s created but, as he does in his plays, he explores the format of writing. “[Beckett] constantly interrupts his sentences, to comment and criticise, looking hard at words, phrases, clichés, metaphors, even punctuation marks” (Hardy 229). While Beckett provides a framework for the critical interpretation of his work, he does not sacrifice story-telling in the process.  

Beckett’s strength comes from merging story with critique, all while subverting expectations of format. “Beckett’s most conspicuous interest in the narrative form. He manages to toss about agonisedly and alertly, running through all the possible reasons for writing stories” (Hardy 229). Beckett’s writing, prose and theatre, seems haphazard at first, often not following chronology or common tropes of the medium. In fact, Beckett’s works reflexively function in the same pattern as understanding Beckett’s work. It’s both itself and a criticism of itself, and can only function as both by interweaving the critique with the narrative. “[Beckett] constantly interrupts his sentences, to comment and criticise, looking hard at words, phrases, clichés, metaphors, even punctuation marks” (Hardy 229). Just as the pages of a heavily studied text are rendered illegible due to annotation, Beckett’s narratives are nearly incomprehensible for the same reason. Beckett simultaneously acts as author, critic, and scholar of each of his works. 

In a way, reaches through the fourth wall of his books, instead of merely breaking it with a reference toward the reader, and supplants the reader with himself. This act is reciprocated, in a practical sense, in Beckett’s Eleutheria. In the third act, the ending of Eleutheria, a spectator climbs onto the stage. “The glazier accepts this break in the fourth wall without much shock or surprise” (Davies 91) alluding to the idea that this traversal between realms typically separated by a fourth wall is a normal activity for Beckett. Beckett has placed himself, as playwright, in the position of the audience, through his scripted character of the Spectator. Beckett simultaneously placed himself in the Glazier as an actor, acting on the events of the play, and as a critic, questioning the Spectator. Eleutheria’s placement in Davies’s chronology would imply Beckett’s practices are well established early in his writing career. This placement of Beckett in each position of the text is actually what lead to his signature writing style in both prose and theatre. 

However, despite his renowned uniqueness, “Beckett is not doing anything new, but writing in the old tradition of literary self-consciousness, shared by Shakespeare… [who] broke both comic and tragic tension by dispelling his own figments” (Hardy 231). Many authors have referenced their self or their work within the contexts of their own work: Beckett wasn’t the first to place himself both in and around his work, and he won’t be the last. But, few have pushed the boundaries as thoroughly as Beckett. In addition to breaking the fourth wall, Beckett can be said to have broken the first three walls, exposing the structure in which he places his stories. Without that containing support, Beckett’s prose is free to roam wildly around, unrestrained, as is his theatre. 

In his effort to uncover the inner workings of his writings, Beckett has uncovered something else entirely, advertently or otherwise: humour. That’s not to say that humour doesn’t exist within Beckett’s works: the perception of humour is a personal one. “The meaning of a text is not built in modular fashion from each word as a building block. So changing even a single word will have multiple effects on the meaning of a text” (Samson et al 168). Beckett, as critic and author, chooses his words very carefully, to deign a very specific meaning. In reference to his work, Murphy, he pays special attention to dressing each scene. When introducing a scene in film or television, an establishing shot gives a general overview of the setting; on stage, an audience is introduced to the entirety of a scene as the lights rise. In prose, descriptors of the current setting often precede the unfolding action. Beckett, in order to introduce a scene, goes into excruciating detail over a small object or idea. His focus on the background is what brings the humour forward. This is by no means specific to Beckett: Andrea C. Samson and Christian F Hempelmann conducted a study toward this effect in 2011. Samson and Hempelmann studied the perception of humour in the background. While Beckett’s characters exhibit incongruity within the reality of the reader, it’s Beckett’s attention to minute detail that provides what Samson and Hempelmann call “backgrounded incongruity”. 

Their study involved taking cartoons and jokes, both of which are easy to consume quickly for testing purposes, and “showed that humorous stimuli… are processed faster and considered funnier when the backgrounded incongruity is not removed” (Samson, et al 174). When the backgrounded incongruity is present, the whole source is considered funnier. This can be applied to Murphy because the Beckett goes to lengths to make the backgrounded incongruity more present within the text. In his act of exploring the format of the text, while simultaneously presenting the text as it is and as the constituent of its parts, Beckett sets a scene to be more humorous than what comes from the actions of the characters. 

According to Samson's and Hempelmann’s study, “[t]he availability of the backgrounded incongruity has no influence on the mentioning of the foregrounded incongruity” (Samson, et al 174), meaning that the situational incongruity present in Murphy, the dynamic between disjointed characters, &c. functions independently of the backgrounded incongruity. Similarly, Beckett’s stage works can be enjoyed as a performance and as a critique independent of each other and as a sum. In typical prose, the narrative can stand on its own. Any additional interpretations and criticisms of that narrative function as an enhancement to the original narrative. Samson’s and Hempelmann’s study utilised cartoons which tend to fall into the category of “typical” prose. The study’s results said that with the addition of backgrounded incongruity, “much more information can be provided and processed that contributes to contextual information that lead to enrichment of the punch line” (Samson et al 175); making it an enhancing feature of the narrative. 

Beckett doesn’t consider his emphasis on the background an enhancing extra to, so much as a necessary piece of the narrative. This is why the narrative and the description of process are inextricably linked in Beckett’s works. This attitude also finds reassurance in Samson’s and Hempelmann’s 2011 study which “revealed further that humorous stimuli with removed backgrounded incongruity are less appreciated, as they are perceived to be less funny and create higher aversion ratings” (Samson et al 181). According to Samson and Hempelmann, as well as Beckett, the presence of background incongruity is indispensable, perhaps not to the completeness of the narrative, but to the completeness of the experience of the narrative. Obviously, placement in the background can easily avoid detection, except for those that look for it. In writing, however anything of value in the background must be brought forward in order to exist. For Beckett’s writing, the structure of the writing is just as visceral as the narrative, so Beckett must bring it to the front. 

By exploring the format of what Beckett presents, readers and audience can then reinterpret themselves. The format of a writing offers assumptions of the content. Samuel Beckett seeks to not only expose these assumptions, but subvert them in order to increase the demonstrable variability of language and its products. In addition to critiquing his own work with this methodology, Samuel Beckett also enhances the humour of his pieces. Many factors play into this product, and it builds a tenuous relationship between text, author, content, reader, and of course humour. But whether Samuel Beckett purposefully deconstructs his own creations for the sake of humour, or whether it is simply a side affect of self-exploration remains to be known. If we isolate the self-consciousness from Beckett’s work, aside from losing its intrinsic value as a unique literature piece, would the piece also lose its humour? Probably not, considering Beckett’s humorous narratives, despite excessive self-awareness and lack of backgrounded incongruity. Samson and Hempelmann prove that Beckett’s methods of providing perhaps more context than can fit in a narrative, he also brings a greater sense of humour to his own writing. 

Works Cited

Beckett, Samuel. Murphy. New York City: Grove Press, Inc., 1957. Print

Davis, Nathaniel. “‘Not a Soul in Sight!’: Beckett’s Fourth Wall.” Journal of Modern Literature   38.2 (2015): 86-94. Academic OneFile. Web.

Hardy, Barbara. The Collected Essays of Barbara Hardy: Narrators and Novelists. Sussex: The   Harvester Press, 1987. Print.

Samson, Andrea C., Hempelmann, Christian F. “Humor with backgrounded incongruity: Does  more required suspension of disbelief affect humor perception?” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 24.2 (2011): 167-185. Web.

Audience: One Isma’ili teenager

The Mad Caliph received that moniker for the absolutely atrocious acts he committed during his reign over the Fatimid Empire. Paul E Walker writes:

"Christians and Jews, by contrast, long remembered al-Hakim as their persecutor, a man who made them wear large crosses and bells in public places, and who ordered many of their churches and synagogues destroyed. One of these churches was, in fact, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the destruction of which sent shock waves throughout all Christendom." (p 5)

During his reign, Caliph alHakim bi Amr Allah made few friends and kept even fewer. His treatment of his constituents led to widespread speculation throughout Europe and the neighbouring Abbasid Empire. His career as Fatimid Caliph has echoed throughout the halls of history, being exaggerated and reiterated in poetry such as Voyage en Orient in 1851 and The New Yorker in 1996. He’s even been inserted into classical literature like 1001 Arabian Nights and Conan: The Barbarian, not to mention the dozens of other references strewn across literature and the internet at large. His legacy usually consists of a short list of atrocities, nearly identical in every instance. We’ll describe these in detail soon, but even without knowing his deeds, there is something fascinating about a “Mad Caliph”.

When we think of “mad” in a titular sense, it can often refer to an evil character; and I think many often assume that’s the case for Caliph alHakim as well, especially in light of his actions. But the term “mad” (in England-English) refers most often to a mental imbalance: foolishness and insanity. We have a number of examples from contemporary literature: the Mad King rules the Seven Kingdoms with an iron fist and a genetic penchant for violence; the Mad Hatter thinks in circles and can’t express himself properly due to lead poisoning; the Mad Titan, while exceedingly logical, still commits mass slaughter on a universal scale. For some, these words may seem archaic or even unacceptable, but terms like “crazy” and “mad” do have historical significance. Our understanding of psychology, both medically and colloquially, have advanced at an incredible rate in the last few decades. But just because we have more specific terminology now, doesn’t mean the phenomena we’re describing is new. In order to understand why “mad” is an appropriate moniker, as opposed to “evil” or “tyrannical”, we have to look at the Caliph’s actions.

Thanks to the tireless work of Salim Lalani, the exIsmaili movement has found new wind this year. Among the normal complaints of cultural supremacy, suspicions over finance, and a general distaste for organised religion, the Mad Caliph has reemerged as a prominent yet infrequent talking point. Citing two encyclopaedias, one of their Instagram posts makes a bold and repeatable claim: if the Mad Caliph did all these terrible things, why is he revered by Isma’ilis as an Imam? Of course, what this post (and the many that came before it) eludes is context. This is why this article is 12,524 words long, why Walker’s book is 284 pages of mostly direct translations, and why the exIsmaili Instagram post is… an Instagram post. If you Sparknotes the reign of Caliph alHakim biAmr Allah and ignore the context, it’s easy to frame his absolute terror. In his video on the subject, Dr Khalil Andani begs for consideration of this context, and he provides it in a way to help his viewers further understand the Mad Caliph’s actions.