The Simple Beauty of Poetry

Poetry to me means something that I can go to in order escape the present and become engulfed into a fantasy. A fantasy of either the past, present or future. It doesn’t necessarily have to be dramatic, but as long as it has meaning to ME, then I consider it a good poem. I enjoy poems consisting of love, life struggles, or inspiration. Because those topics are something I can relate to and I can actually feel the authors meaning. I like to become involved within the poem and experience the emotions that the author was trying to make the reader feel. Sometimes, I read poems and think the complete opposite thing of what the author might have been suggesting. That is the pure beauty of literature and writing. You can go on and on without many boundaries, besides the edge of the white paper on which you are writing on. Even if I do find unintentional meanings within the poem, I still wonder on what the author was really trying to get across. Perhaps the writer was merely writing just for the fun of it? Perhaps that is a way of expressing their own true feelings and thoughts?

I love the way poetry lets me get involved within the simple and small portion of the page. I can connect words with other ones in the poem and try to derive some type of a meaning. One connection leads to another and this lets me be free and write down any thought that I might be feeling. I love that simple act of reading that lets me feel a whole lot of emotions, based on what I am reading. That’s the beauty. I can read a poem each day to go along with my mood. Or sometimes I can read a poem in hopes of changing my mood from one to another. Once the poem changes me, I feel different. But with irony, I do not change the poem. The poem always stays the same and does not change. It’s funny how just a bunch of words on a page can provide so much feeling and completely change a person. Meanwhile the page is never affected, unless you burn it. But I’m sure these days there’s always a copy somewhere online or in another million books.

I am enjoying this unit of AP Lit. There’s really no wrong or right answer when you analyze a poem, as long as you have your evidence to support what you’re saying.

"The School Children"

"The School Children" written by Louise Gluck is a poem about the difficulties a mother has to face during the time of her child’s departure from home. A possible thesis for this poem could be: In the poem, “The School Children”, Louise Gluck explores the difficulties mothers face and reveals the sadness and lonesome they feel once their children leave home, through imagery, contrast and tone shift.

Right from the start the author explores the idea of “children go(ing) forward” as their mothers labor at home and do shores that are “unknown” to them. Possibly meaning that the only thing that mothers know how to do best is to take care of the children. To them the chores seem to be “of another language” as their kids go to school. The second stanza, suggests the fact that the kids are the “great offerings” which are received “on the other shore”, being teachers, schools etc. The mothers are left behind with all their efforts put into the children and the children just leave, leaving no credit behind. The mothers give apples to the children, as in they teach their kids the right from wrong. But all that the children do is, leave the home and take their knowledge elsewhere. Moreover, as the teachers “instruct them in silence” the children are spoiled by the teachers’ rotten traps and all of their innocence goes away. The mothers try to “scour…for a way out” as they feel trapped inside by their duty to stay at home. They show little ammunition, because they are tired of labor and they miss their children.

This poem is very true in most cases. The author did a great job emphasizing the importance of mothers upon the children. The real pain can be felt throughout the poem as the author displays imagery in various parts throughout the poem. Just as poetry does, this poem also interrupts the “stream of life” in order to let humans process it. This poem is concerned with a moment in life where the hardest part of being a mother is to watch your children leave the home. All your efforts and caring go out the door, without an idea of whether they will come back or not. The poem works by making the readers feel how mothers feel exactly and the pain that they go through. And this way the author does a great job capturing what really is going on at that moment of time in a mother’s life.

Grendel

Grendel is a very interesting novel. It takes into account the point-of-view of the “evil Grendel” from Beowulf and transforms the whole story into a nice heart-felt novel. In Beowulf Grendel is portrayed as an evil monster who gains pleasure from slaughtering humans. However, in this novel, I feel sorry for Grendel. He appears as a lonely, sad creature who only tries to make friends with humans. They misinterpret him, due to the fact that they cannot understand his language, and they attack him. He only comes to the mead hall in hopes of making new friendships. He observes the Danes secretly in a sort of jealous way. As if he wishes, he could be a part of their celebration and storytelling. Even though he sarcastically mocks the Danes and their dumb “religion”, to me it seems that he still wishes to be a part of them.

When Unferth attacks Grendel, Grendel defends himself and throws apples at him. This could be as a sign of that Grendel is throwing “knowledge” upon the Danes. He wants to wake them up into reality, and make them stop believing in God. He wants them to realize that he truly is not after them. It is important to realize that the apple throwing symbolizes Grendel’s knowledge. He only longs for connection, not harm. Are the humans cruel to nature that they do not ever try and approach Grendel in a friendly way? Is that their instinct to survival? Will they ever really see Grendel past the outside and into the inside? Grendel does not wish to continue fighting the humans, as the whole action is “mechanical” and pointless. Grendel can sense that this war will go on and on, with no end. But will he ever be able to change that? Will he ever be able to get the point across to the humans and let them know that he is not intending any harm? Grendel grows up alone, he cannot even communicate with his mother and the dis-connection grows stronger and stronger over time.

The dragon tries to influence Grendel to continue fighting with the Danes. At first Grendel finds pleasure in his raids, but later he realizes that the whole action is pointless and meaningless. He wants to have meaning in the world, to be something…but fighting won’t get him there. He wants to be known for something, but it is not as Grendel who killed the Danes. Will Grendel ever find a way to gain some meaning in his world or will the Danes end his life before he can gain any significance?

All the King's Men- Reflection

 The deaths of each person seemed to have been connected in sort of a web pattern. One dramatic event lead to another and so on. That is how life seems to be. The way Jack attempted to escape reality is often times the same way people in the real world try to escape their problems. But running from your own mistakes is not the answer. Good thing Jack realized this in towards the end and finally became “motivated”. If he hadn’t, perhaps he and Anne Stanton would have never gotten married. It is sad to see though, that she had an affair with Willie just because he represented power and ambition. Or did she do it for the money? We may never come to a conclusion. Whatever the reason was, I’m glad they made it work in the end because Jack truly seemed like a lovable character.  Moreover, I do not usually enjoy books that have to do with politics, but I must say this one was quite fascinating. It seems to me that the purpose of this work was to show that everyone is responsible for his or her own actions. Jack refused responsibility and tried to escape reality by heading out to the West, but when it all came down; he was forced to face the truth in the East. He sort of received a wake-up call and the “vibrations” of the spider web, which were the deaths of certain people he knew, caused him to see the reality. In many ways this is my life every day and it is clearly obvious that no one must ever run away from their own responsibility. The plot of the story itself was confusing at times, but things seemed to clear up as the novel progressed forward, such as the story of Cass Mastern. At first I was not sure how it related to anything going on in the book at all, but later I drew the parallel between Jack and Cass. In many ways the story of Cass was a foreshadowing of Jack’s future. The tone of some of the characters seemed as if they were angry at times or powerful, such as Willie. He asserted himself in a very dominant manner and people became submissive under his power. This type of tone made me feel repressed under Willie’s dominance and I too became submissive. The author’s style of writing this novel at first seemed annoying, because he often times wrote long and descriptive sentences. But as I continued to read the novel, I became accustomed to such details and it made the book flow as I read. All the characters and random stories, such as the one of Cass, tied up in the end and gave the novel a meaning.

 

Significance of Chapter 10 in ATKM

I’d like to discuss some of the significant quotes from the last chapter of ATKM.  The first quote that catches my attention says “…and soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history and into history and the awful responsibility of Time” (661). The Cass Mastern story, which takes up most of Chapter 4, is not relevant to the novel's plot, but it is very important to the novel's theme. Cass Mastern's journals describe a man who slowly learns the same lesson of responsibility that Jack must learn during the course of the story. At first, Cass is nonchalant about his hedonistic behavior, but after his friend's suicide and Annabelle's selling of Phebe, Cass goes to great length to make amends and to undo the consequences of his actions. As a young man, Jack is unable to understand Cass's motivations; by the end of the novel, he writes that he "now may come to understand" them. Thus the Cass Mastern story works as a kind of index of Jack's development--the closer he comes to understanding it, the closer he comes to being ready to step into the "awful responsibility of Time."

Moreover, another quote that is worth a discussion says, “she gave me a new picture of herself, and that meant, in the end, a new picture of the world” (652). Here Jack is referring the knowledge that his mother gives him right before she decides to move away. The knowledge that she gives him, which is that she is still in love with Irwin, proves to jack that his mother is capable of love and this helps jack overcome his numbness. Jack is then able to return to Anne. His numbness was caused by confrontation of responsibility. Also, the quote saying “Duffy was the villain and I was the averaging hero. I had kicked Duffy around and my head was as big as a balloon with grandeur. Then all at once something happened and the yellow taste was in the back of my mouth “ (628). Here Jack realizes that he has blamed Duffy in full for willies death, and that blaming Duffy is an admission that someone was directly responsible for what happened. If someone’s responsible for an action, then great twitch theory cant hold up. And if someone’s responsible for willies death, jacks forced to face the measure of responsibility that he himself bears.

A Doll's House

At first, Nora believes that the true meaning of being “free” is not what she considers it to be later in the play. By telling Ms. Linde “Free. To be free, absolutely free. To spend time playing with the children. To have a clean, beautiful house, the way Torvald likes it,” (1226).  In this quotation from her conversation with Mrs. Linde in Act One, Nora claims that she will be “free” after the New Year, after she has paid off her debt to Krogstad. While describing her anticipated freedom, Nora highlights the very factors that constrain her. She claims that freedom will give her time to be a mother and a traditional wife who maintains a beautiful home, as her husband likes it. But the message of the play is that Nora cannot find true freedom in this traditional life. As the play continues, Nora becomes increasingly aware that she must change her life to find true freedom, and her understanding of the word “free” evolves accordingly. By the end of the play, she sees that freedom entails independence from societal constraints and the ability to explore her own personality, goals, and beliefs. This is triggered by Nora’s sudden realization that Torvald is not who he seems to be. She used to see him as this noble man, but once he refuses to protect her back against a bad reputation, Nora realizes that she is not happy with him and their marriage. This leads her to further seek an independent life as a woman. In Act three, at the end Nora states, “I have been performing tricks for you, Torvald. That’s how I’ve survived. You wanted it like that. You and Papa have done me a great wrong. It’s because of you I’ve made nothing of my life,” (1230). Nora speaks these words, which express the truth that she has gleaned about her marriage, Torvald’s character, and her life in general, to Torvald at the end of Act Three. She recognizes that her life has been largely a performance. She has acted the part of the happy, child-like wife for Torvald and, before that, she acted the part of the happy, child-like daughter for her father. She now sees that her father and Torvald compelled her to behave in a certain way and understands it to be “great wrong” that stunted her development as an adult and as a human being. She has made “nothing” of her life because she has existed only to please men. Following this -realization, Nora leaves Torvald in order to make something of her life and for the first time to exist as a person independent of other people. She shuts the door as a symbol of giving up on the “fantasy” world that she used to live in with Torvald and she seeks out to find her true self in the “real” world.

Reflection on "Hairball" Essay

I had good ideas in my paper, but as it turns out I needed more support for them. Perhaps I could blend in more quotes into my sentences in order to help support what I am trying to say. For example, when I mentioned that “her co-workers disregarded her aspects and failed to realize the importance of Kat’s view”, I should have supported that statement with some evidence. Moreover, some of my sentences had fragments in them, so I should have someone read over my essay next time more closely in order to have the maximum amount of editing possible. I noticed that some of my sentences were labeled as “awkward”. I do get that a lot, but I am not sure how I can fix that. To me my sentences seem alright, but I guess when another person reads them, he or she does not feel the same way I do. Also, I need to use double quotation marks instead of single ones. I thought we used single ones when we are mentioning the same word we previously used in a quote, but I guess not. I need to work on my transitions in between points and paragraphs, as they seem to be weak. Sometimes I feel like I am being repetitive if I keep using similar transition words. So that is a bit of a problem for me. I also see that commas should go inside quotes, not on the outside. I think I knew that, but it was just a mistake on my part. I see that I had a few passive voice comments on my essay. Well I do try to use active voice as much as possible, but again, sometimes it is hard to notice your own mistakes.  As I see, I should not mention “in conclusion” at any point in any essay for this class. I use it in environmental science because we are told to do so, so I guess I got a bit confused on which class is for what.  It seems that I am missing a lot of commas. Well, I do try to use them as much as I can, as I perceive that there is a need for them. However, I guess I need to work on pausing in my sentences or perhaps making them shorter. I also see that “taxi” does not need to be capitalized. I thought it should be, because it is a type of a car? Hmm. Well good to know. I did try to analyze a lot of my work, and I think I got that part down pretty much. But as I focused on one thing: analyzing, my other sections went down. Sometimes I have a hard time getting across what I am trying to say, so that makes my sentences seem awkward and grammatically wrong.