Back Pack Literature Chapter 23

This week our reading was drama, or plays. Personally i would rather go and see a play than read a play. I find it more difficult to keep track of what exactly is happening when i am reading it word for word, than when i am actualy seeing it before my eyes. With that being said i really like how the book discussed the fact that even if you live in a big city with multiple theatre productions, or go to a university with a very active theatre department the chance of seeing every shakespear play written are slim to none. The books solution to this is to have and read the plays, having the play in hand is like having a book, the play is ready to be enacted on the stage of the mind. Hopefully i can keep this in mind when i continue this weeks readings and read the play fences by august wilson.

Group D Poems

Meding Wall by Frost
Learning to Love America by Lim
Harlem by Hughes
All three of these poems were apart of the reading this week. In these three poems i did not have a particular favorite over the rest of them.
Mending wall by Robert Frost was a very visual piece of poetry. I interpreted this poem as a man being the narrorator watching or spying on his neighbor over the fence around his yard. I though this because of the line that was repeated "good fences make good neighbors." I thought the author meant by this that the narrorator was not a very socialable person and perfered to watch than to actually socialize.
Learning to Love America was a way for the author to express her feelings about the way she feels about America. Every line was a reason why she loved the fact she came to America, it was almost like she was justifying her decision to move here. The part of the poem that was most powerful for me was when she incorporated her son into the poem. The introduction of her son demonstrated how powerful her feelings towards this topic are.
Harlem
I found this poem to be confusing in what was trying to be portrayed in the message. Personally I interpreted it to be about a persons dreams dying and not being able to live up to his or her dreams. I think the title of Harlem brings in the fact that the dreams were and are not met because of reality and how hard it is in Harlem at times.

Group E Poems

This week i was in group E poems
My favorite poem of the three we had to read was Daystar by Dove. In this poem the author draws the perfect picture of the typical tired, stressed out over worked mother. Throughout the entire poem the author describes the many reasons as to why the mother wants what is stated at the end. "for an hour----where/ she was nothing,/ pure nothing, in the middle of the day. In my head when i read this line i visualized a mother sitting outside staring off in the distance think of absolutely nothing, just wishing her kids would take a long nap so she could have some time to herself. Like she says she wants in the beginning when she says "she wanted a little room for thinking" Every mother deserves so me time alone.

The next poem we read was The one girl at the boys' party by Olds. This poem was so strange to me... I found this poem to be written with the message trying to be of how this girl has changed, or was maturing. The comparisons of her body to math numbers or symbols was very odd and differnt. I do not know for sure who is telling this story but because of how detailed it is about her body i didn't think it was her mother or father. In my experience parents are typically sad they are growing up and the narrator of this poem seemed to be admiring it. So then part of me thought it could have been a boy who liked her, until the author talked about sitting her down, then it seemed as if it was a younger girl. I still do not fully understand who is narrorating this poem.

The third poem we read was Daddy by Plath I found this poem to be dark and very angry.. I did not like this poem as much as the other two. Not because of the anger, but because it was so much harder for me to read and follow along than the other two.

poetry symbols

A symbol is just about the most important aspect of a poem. In chapter 19 of the book it talks about what a symbol is and what it takes to create a symbol in poetry. The perfect poem to show this is The Road Not Taken this peom discusses how the author had to roads to choose from and describes the inner battle within him or her self in order to decied which road to take. To me in this poem the roads are symbolizing two different paths the author can choose to take for their life. I love the inner battle the author has because it is so real... Everyday so many people go through this battle with themselves.

Sound/Rime

I learned so much in this weeks reading. I especially enjoyed chapter fifteen. I had no idea there was so much to poetry, a lot of people think poetry is just rhyming a couple of words together in a line. Poetry does not only not have to rhyme, but when it does there are several different types of ways to rhyme. Before this week to me a ryhme was just a rhyme. after reading this chapter I now realize this is not the case, for example there are masculine ryhme, or feminine rimes it and which is which all depends on the amount of syllables in the ryhming words. In the chapter a great example of a poem with different types of ryhming is God's Gradeur. This poem has many different ryhmes throughout the line, and through these words of ryhming develps the sound of the poem. The book compares poetry to that of an orchestra piece, it appeals to the ear. I loved this quote at the beginning of the chapter because it shows just how important the choice of words is. The choice of words builds the sound of a poem, which in return draws a readers attention.

Poetry-Voice/Figures of Speech

Voice/Figures of Speech
In the poem "My Papa's Waltz" i really depicted the voice of the narrator to be a adult male telling the story of his childhood. It was through his language and figure of speech that the author portrays the mans emotions towards his father. It is through the characters voice that the tone of the man comes through. He seems as if he has respect for his father, but has a great amount of resentment towards him. In poetry when the poets use figures of speech like similes and metaphors it helps to strenghten the voice, and the images, just like it did in this poem.

Poetry-imagery, Word choice

Imagery/Word Choice
"The Fish" poem is my favorite of the eleven poems we had to read this week. This poem was my favorite for many reasons. The two main reasons for this is the imagery the poet created, and the words she choose in order to create such imagery. The description of the oil spills creating a rainbow in the water, making so the only thing the fishermen was seeing was the rainbow. Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow. It was because of seeing that the fishermen decided to let the fish go. That and the five hooks that were in the fish's mouth previously. The way the poet describes the fish gives me the picture that the fish is a strong fighting fish. Because of the line where the fisher says that the fish did not fight made me believe that maybe this time the fish has had enough and was ready to give up the fight.

First half of One Day in The Life Of Ivan Denisovich

At this part in the story Shukhov is being punished for committing a crime we the readers are not even sure he actually commited. The point of punishment is to teach an indivdual the wrong doing in their actions, and to take personal responsibility for oneselves. When people are punished for things outside of his or her control the idea of personal responsibilty looses all meaning. With wrongful accusations crime rates can actually rise because people tend to become less caring about difference between right and wrong. Especially if they are going to be punished anyway.
The author constantly using different names for the same person was incredibly confusing. At first it seemed as if they were to separte characters, when instead i think the author wanted the reading to translate it as Ivan no longer being the same person after being at the camp. This idea is probably really stretching it though, just something i noticed. In the camp it seems as if none of them have an identity.
Each day the prisoners are striped and searched for forbidden items that they may have possibly some how smuggled. The prisoners have to take their clothes off in freezing cold temperatures and in front of everyone. The daily strip and search serves as a way for the camp to keep communist. If no one is allowed to have anything forbidden then they are all of the same class even though they are in prison.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

First of all this story was incredibly creepy!!! I think her naive attitude towards strangers fits the characteristics of teens now very well. If i was Connie and i was home alone and did not know a car that pulled up in my drive way i would not have even bother to answer the door let alone go see who it is before they even come to the door. The character of Connie was portrayed very detailed and incredibly well. Carol Oates did an amazing job of building her up from her physical portraits to her attitude and lack of experiences. Same thing goes for Aronld Friend, he was a flat out creep!

A Good Man is Hard to Find

From only reading the title at first i assumed this story was going to be a typical love story. When i got to the third or fourth page i remembered i had read this story for my advanced comp class in high school, this is a recurring situation in this class. It is going to sound really weird but i really like this story, it grabs the readers attention, and keeps them guessing as to what is going to happen next. I found the underlying message the author was trying to portray was that no matter how bad some people are there are always still people out there who have hope for them. In this story the misfit is obvioulsy the bad guy, and the grandma was obviously the one who had the hope for him. The grandmother was still beggin for him to pray with her when they pulled the trigger on her and shot her dead.  I found the discussion in the beginning of the story about the misfit in the story to be a foreshadowing of what was to come. In this case the encounter with the misfit on the gravel road. The behavior of the mother really surprised me. I could not believe she went off into the woods without even so much as a word, even though she knew what was going to happen if she followed bobby lee and Hiram. This entire story was just crazy ironic. Grandmother really wanted to go to Tennesse to visit family so at the beginning of the story she threatened them with the run in of the misfit. Only for them to later acutally run into the mistfit. Another ironic moment was the fact that she was so insistent upon going to this house that she swore she knew was right down the road, but it turns out the house was a complete different state. Which wound them up in front of the misfit. The last bit of irony i had was the cat. The cat had to be hidden because no body wanted him on the trip. Grandma didn't want the cat to be along, but because she brought him they were encountered with the misfit, and everyone was murdered leaving the cat along forever.

Greasy Lake

The story of Greasy Lake is written with the main character being the narrator, and is a captivating short story right away from the beginning. One aspect of the story that really stood out from me was the way he described nature. The first time he describes nature is at the beginning of the short story, and he does so by describing the garbage, and only the crickets and frogs. Where as the second time he describes the nature he describes every thing around him that is mean to be there and how because it is so still it is nature, this was very interesting to me i don't know why. I think it just showed that after this experience he may have grown up a little and looks at things with a more mature eye, rather than a nine teen year old boys eye still. As for the rest of the story in my opinion these boys were being the steryotypical nineteen year old society sees. They were drinking and doing multiple other illegal activities, and came across a car they thought was a friends. With the hope of seeing a naked girl they approached the car only to find out it was not their friends. When the man came out he attacked them and they began to fight back. In that moment i think it was just bad timing, and an honest mistake. With that being said though once they had beaten the man up they went after the girl with the intentions of raping her. It was then that the little bit of sorry i had for the three boys vanished. They were defending themselves when they beat the man off, but going after the girl was not defense it was in the efforts of pure pleasure. When the car came they are three vanished off into the woods. One of them going into the lake where he encounters a dead body, which the reader later finds out is AL the guy the girls are looking for at the end of the story. I think that the car being destroyed was a matter of karma because of what they were trying to do to the girl. With that being said the way the responded to the two girls looking for AL at the end of the story showed that they were scared out of their minds and done fooling around with people. I believe that before they were attacked and he saw the dead body, they would have went after these two girls and messed with them. But instead they practically blew them off driving in the other direction away from them and what had happend.

Backpack (Achebe & Jackson)

Dead Men's Path Page 269
In chinua Achebe's short story of Dead Men's Path the symbol of the path is much more than just a path of grass flattened by the walking of many individuals. I think Achebe was trying to symbolize how the path was not just a walk way, but i way of life. The students who were walking there are going down the same path their family members had previously walked on. There are multiple times when the narrator of this story hints at the path being more than just a walking path.

Back pack literature (Hemingway & Henry)

A Clean, Well-lighted Place Page 142
Style and Tone
In Hemingway's short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place the style throughout the story is quite different then that of the short stories we have read previously in this class. When he writes dialogue between the two waiters it is difficult to distinguish between which of the two waiters is speaking at that exact moment. Hemingway does this because at times i think the line break is still the same waiter talking, just a pause, or the breath in the conversation if it was a real life scenario. His style of writing is also different in the way that when there is a conversation there is not a so and so said like typical writers do. His conversations are written as if they are real life conversations happening in the moment. The tone is this story seemed very annoyed, and cynical to me. The waiter was completely annoyed by the old man, and even had told the man at one point that he "should have killed himself." Throughout the conversation with between the two waiters one was continuously complaining about how he wanted to just go home because he has not been in bed before three am all week.

The Gift of the Magi Page 164
O' Henry's style throughout this story was like an other typical short story i have read about love. Both of the characters were doing anything in their power to get their spouse the perfect present for them, and in the end it didn't work out. The narrator of this story seemed to be making fun of the two love birds at time. Especially when he tells the part about jim smiling because he had sold the exact watch she had just bought something for.

Backpack Literature - A & P (page 18)
In this short story it felt almost as if a reader could have been watching a short film clip, rather than a actual piece of literature. With how closely he was watching the girls as he was checking people out it was as if I was there while i reading it.

A Pair of Tickets (page 119)
In this short story from Amy Tan i found myself really struggling to read this piece of literature... I thought it dragged on for quite some time without anything happening. With that being said this story was narrorated by the main character and made it feel like they were actually in china the entire time rather than her just dreaming about what was going to happen.

Backpack literature - A Rose For Emily
William Faulkner's short story a rose for Emily was incrediably captivating. He grabbed my attention and kept it through out the short story, with the bits of foreshadowing there was towards Homer's body being there. The point of view in this story had a huge impact on the affect of the story. Due to the fact that this story was told by an outsider looking in, rather than someone who lived in the house or a main character for example it help suspens. It was because we as readers are seeing this story as an outsider that we are to react the way we do when the one strand of grey hair is found on the pillow next to homers body. I love short stories that have this point of view, i feel like it gives them a twist, or a different perspective from the typical story told by the main character or characters. My reaction toward the end of this story, even though i have read this before is shock and disgust. When Faulkner writes about the smell of her house effecting the neighbors and draws out the image of her house a picture one of the people from hoaders living there. Only to find out at the end she was storring Homer's body there....


Backpack Literature - Cathedral
I am familiar with the short story of Cathedral by Raymond Carter. In high school we read this for my advanced composition class. Carter does an extremely impeciable job of building these three characters. In the beginning of the short story the husband was incrediably naive and small minded towards the rest of the real world. His harsh attitude is portrayed very well throughout the story until he starts to smoke with the blind mind. Carter portrays the scence of them sitting on the couch smoking and watching tv so well that it was like i could see it for real. In this short story he has the images of these characters painted so well it makes it really easy for the reader to picture them, almost as if they knew of them in real life.

Backpack Literature Chapter 29

This chapter brings attention to the many different steps, or levels that need to be taken in order to complete a well written paper. While also focusing on how I as a reader can work to become an active reader.
 Being an avid reader while going through the beginning of the chapter on active reading there were things that i read that after thinking about it I realized I do without always realizing, and then there were strategies I know I have never tried before, and plan to in the future when struggling with a text. When i am reading I am constantly rereading when i come to something in particular that didn't make sense, or sometimes when i come to something that really surprised me. I will admit that often times when reading plays i will only read the dialogue or the assigned part for that given day. This chapter stated the importance reading every part of the play including the side notes, and how that will help one to better understand often times. I will also work on reading poetry aloud in order to make better sense of the poetry i am reading.
Throughout the entire writing section of this chapter the main topic was a thesis statement. When writing about i literary piece a postion needs to be taken, and that postition needs to clearly be stated through a strong thesis statment. Through the entire paper everything must always relate back to the thesis statement. One does not need to neccessarily restate the thesis statement, rather just make sure the point that is being made some how relates back to the thesis. After reading this chapter i have found that i am incrediably good at the prewriting stage, and often times will struggle with the actual writing process. I will often times get stuck, i need to work on starting the paper long enough ahead of time in order to be able to put it away for awhile to come back to it with a clearer head.