Sharon Olds

The End

We decided to have the abortion, became
killers together. The period that came
changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple
who had been for life.
As we talked of it in bed, the crash
was not a surprise. We went to the window,
looked at the crushed cars and the gleaming
curved shears of glass as if we had
done it. Cops pulled the bodies out
Bloody as births from the small, smoking
aperture of the door, laid them
on the hill, covered them with blankets that soaked
through. Blood
began to pour
down my legs into my slippers. I stood
where I was until they shot the bound
form into the black hole
of the ambulance and stood the other one
up, a bandage covering its head,
stained where the eyes had been.
The next morning I had to kneel
an hour on that floor, to clean up my blood,
rubbing with wet cloths at those glittering
translucent spots, as one has to soak
a long time to deglaze the pan
when the feast is over. 

After reading "The Race" by Sharon Olds, I wanted to analyze a poem of hers. "The Race" was such an exciting and passionate poem that really left me in awe. This poem "The End" focuses on a couple who decides on an abortion. Instead of saying 'to get an abortion', the speaker chooses to say 'to have the abortion'. The 'have' that can be used to say to have a baby, is replaced with the act of killing an unborn baby. The next lines "The period that came changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple who had been for life" is confusing because the young couple seems to refer to the speaker and her significant other but there is a use of third person. Also, instead of the baby being dead, it is the couple who dies. This difference could point to the couple's termination of their relationship. The decision to abort the baby ends their own relationship as a couple. The crash, pointing to the auto accident, doesn't register to the speaker as a surprise. Maybe because the couple were discussing their decision to abort the baby, the tragedy of the car accident is not significant. However, the car accident is not just an ordinary accident. The major crash has the cops pulling the bodies out and the description is similar to a woman giving birth. The injured bodies comes out and are immediately covered with blankets. After witnessing the incident, the speaker has a miscarriage. One of the victim is dead while the other one is blinded with blood. Perhaps the shock from seeing the accident, even though the speaker says that the accident did not come as a surprise, triggered the miscarriage. Or the unborn baby decided to leave the mother who did not want it. The speaker cleans up her own blood without any help from her significant other. I do not fully understand the relationship she makes with cleaning the blood with the leftover pans from a party. Maybe the speaker had been joyful at the moment of her pregnancy but at the end of it all, she realizes the pain in cleaning the mess. 

It's interesting how the speaker sees the car accident that is like a graphic image of a miscarriage and has one of her own. Instead of becoming a killer by aborting the baby, the baby is miscarried. The question is, will the couple stay together because she did not go through the abortion? Or is the baby what connected the couple? 

Reading a few more of her poems, Sharon Olds has a distinct writing characteristic that usually involves an event that is fast paced and reads more like a story than a poem. I really enjoy her work and can't wait to read more.

Ernest

I actually watched The Importance of Being Ernest the past summer on a lazy 'let's watch amazon prime movies because they are free' day. So, when you said not to watch the movie, a guilty conscience pulled my mind. Even though I don't remember everything and the memory of the movie is very dim, I felt that the movie followed the play in sequence. Of course, with all the AP Literature knowledge in me, if I were to watch the movie again, I am sure I will be analyzing the faults of the movie. I really enjoyed reading The Importance of Being Ernest in class because the students really put in the effort to read their parts with an accent. Coming from third period, I know only a couple of people who would have tried their British accents. Second period's enthusiasm and friendly atmosphere makes reading plays a lot more entertaining and engaging.

The day we started learning about Oscar Wilde and about his witty way of saying many ironic yet truthful message, I went to tutor a sixth grader. When I was tutoring, I noticed their calender had a little quote below the month of April, "A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough" by Benjamin Franklin. When I read that, I was like Wilde! and then thought, 'oh, what AP Lit does to my life' :)

I really liked reading the play especially for its witty comments. Since I don't have a talent for writing, I always admire people with the ability to make profound statements. My favorite scene in the play is in Act 3 with Lady Brackwell sweating under Jack to try to get Algernon and Cecily to marry as quickly as possible. The total shift from 'Algernon should not marry a ward' to 'Algernon has to marry a heiress' is very funny. When Jack says, "How extremely kind of you, Lady Bracknell!  I have also in my possession, you will be pleased to hear, certificates of Miss Cardew’s birth, baptism, whooping cough, registration, vaccination, confirmation, and the measles; both the German and the English variety" and she replies, "Ah! A life crowded with incident, I see; though perhaps somewhat too exciting for a young girl.  I am not myself in favour of premature experiences" I mean the way she thinks the 'premature experiences' are too exciting for a little girl is very laughable. She does not think in terms of reality but only about the social status expectations. Anyways, the superficiality of Lady Brackwell's thoughts is revealed deeply when Jack mentions the fortune of Cecily. The comment on how people judge people's profile based on wealth, beauty, and education is still so prevalent in today's society. Society in Wilde's time is not very different from ours. I think the most amazing thing about literature is that the social commentaries are always relatable. The human race fails to grow and change. Even though the 21st century is so bent on trying to promote equality, society is only self centered and wishes to judge others to boost its own confidence.

Fight

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks. Since I have never blogged about my personal life, I would like to do it this one time. Since freshman year, I have never had the time to be involved too deeply in any high school drama because I was so intently focused in school and it’s unrelenting work. The countless Saturdays that were marked as ‘hangout days’ passed by me as I stayed home with a book in my hands. Social life? What? Friends were only existent in school and left my world as I entered my home. Of course, this is not to say that my high school years were terrible. I enjoyed working as hard as I did and even though sometimes I felt like I wasn’t being appreciated enough by my parents, I personally took the satisfaction in the effort I was able to put in. Even until the first semester of senior year, I worked as hard as I could and scraped each and every point in my classes in the midst of college applications. Now that it is less than a month away from graduation, I have let go of the string that I have held so tightly in the past. I am tired. I can’t push through anymore. It seems like no matter what I do, I cannot see the point in it. Not being accepted into the colleges that I knew I deserved (sorry if I sound arrogant) basically took all the drive and determination out of me. The feeling of being a failure is too hard to shake off. Not only that, in that loosening of the grip, I slacked off on my school work and decided to socialize. Because I was trying to do all the things I have missed out the past years in just a couple of months, I guess I shocked my parents. I met a boy. A boy who lost his mother in December. Even though he and I grew into a relationship based on the desire to be with each other just as any other high school students form a relationship, mine had to be different. I told my mom that I was dating a boy (first relationship in my life) in hopes that I could be open with her. Big mistake. I was clear that she was holding back her disapproval of me dating. My parents found out that I had sneaked off on Saturdays to see him and the truth came out. They thought he resorted to me because of the grief brought on by his mother’s death. Or that I found him appealing because his dad is a doctor and owns a hospital, so that I, whose dream is to become a pediatrician, could gain some guidance. I was personally disgusted. It was as if my past actions did not matter in anything. They even questioned my faith in Christianity. That night was full of thoughts of suicide and questioning the point of living. Living in America and knowing what I know about the things teenagers do, I am the ideal daughter. I have values that I personally hold dear which keeps me far away from the temptations of smoking, drinking, etc. Therefore, to me, my parents should overlook the lie of sneaking off and just tell me to tell them when I am going to see him. But they had to take it to a scale I hadn’t even imagined. It was as if I committed the most detestable crime, and I didn’t value myself. My true frustration is that no one will ever know what I have gone through and understand to sympathize with me. I hate putting on a mask to everyone to pretend that everything is fine because everything is not. And truthfully, school is the last thing from my mind. If my parents can’t even respect my decisions and try to understand my point of view, why am I living? Of course, I am not suicidal, and I have tried to get back on track with school work as best as I could, but there is still that buried frustration deep down inside of me.

Seminars

I never thought the seminar that we prepare could be so effective in enlightening what the meaning of the work is. Although we can never fully grasp the idea or ideas that Ellison wished to convey, I think we are making a good attempt at it.

Lucius Brockway is an interesting figure who is black, works underground, hated by the workers, and believes in his control over the factory. He is like the grandfather of the narrator who believes that even if he cannot be in front view of everyone in his control, he has the strong conviction that he is controlling everyone. Also, he is the one who came up with the concept of calling the paint Optic White. He gives the assumption or he tricks people into thinking that the paint is pure, white, and without defect. However, the "the liquid inside was dead black"; the drops that completes the white paint is a color that is condemned in society. Therefore, this is Lucius's way of rebelling against the control of the society that refuses to give him the power his desperately wants and has eluded his mind in believing in.  He tells the narrator of the story that in his mind confirmed his authority of the 'Old Man', "Shucks, a few days later the Old Man had me back down here in full control" (216). He doesn't seem to realize that the place he came down to is the underground, a place that no one wishes to go to. Just as with the analogy if Heaven and Hell, people wish to be above ground, in view of people, not cloaked in darkness where no one knows who you are. Therefore, it is only fitting that Lucius has descriptions of being a Satan figure, "...was small, wiry and very natty in his dirty overalls... I couldn't tell whether he felt guilty about something himself, or thought I had committed some crime" ). As the figure in charge of the underground pipe room, that indirectly controls the workings of upstairs, Lucius holds high pride in being that powerful figure. He makes the narrator call him Mister Brockway, leaving the narrator confused as to how an uneducated black man could be in charge of such a big role. The confusion is one of many experiences the narrator has in coming to realize the insignificance of education. The encounter with Lucius prompts his renewal in Harlem in the Brotherhood. The explosion in the underground signifies the rupturing of the 'yeses', possibility, which relates with the advice that the narrator's grandfather once told him about. The narrator also becomes like Lucius in the epilogue, as he describes himself as Dante and guides Mr. Norton to the Center Station.

Summary

Why is it that the books that we have read from the beginning of the year all center around the theme of  truth and enlightenment. Frankenstein, Winesburg, Ohio, Grendel, Age of Innocence, Hamlet, and Invisible Man all deal with the importance of truth. This commonality also elongates to how the truth is unobtainable even with the greatest desire. All the characters in these mentioned novels were never able to find the whole truth or satisfied. However, what is it about truths that make authors ponder on and on about how to obtain it but in the end the futility is always realized. But why don't or couldn't these authors write about the struggles of overcoming an obstacle in their lives or a rewarding experience? What makes the concept of truth so compelling that it causes so many authors to write about that? It seems clear to me after reading these books that one cannot obtain truth or find an absolute identity. Then why write about truth? It's just amazing to see the works of these authors in their distinct creativeness, narration, and points of emphasis. Even if the end of the book suggests the impossibility of finding the truth, the journey that is described is so intricate, meaningful, and beautiful and most importantly unique in every piece of literature we read together. I suppose the reason I am writing about its is because the school year is coming to an end, and I wished to reflect on the year. I wasn't able to receive a package from the colleges that I applied to that started out with the word 'congratulations', except UGA and GT. The past week has been rough because I couldn't stop thinking about why I worked so hard and so tirelessly if I couldn't even make it in to these top twenty colleges. The self doubt, frustration, and anger surmounted until I couldn't take it anymore. Then I thought about 'what's the point' and saw a Grendel in me that I never thought I possessed. Of course, people try to comfort me and say college doesn't determine everything and  that the colleges made a mistake of not choosing me, but in the end, the situation doesn't change. I didn't make it in and now I feel lost. The what ifs come in multitudes and consume my mind. Sorry for ranting... And now back to AP Lit, conclusion: It is amazing how different authors with unique ideas share the similarity of writing about truth..

A Poison Tree

I really believe in the concept that there is power in what we say out loud. This past Sunday, I was talking to my Sunday Bible study teacher, casually having coffee, and we came to the subject of faith and speaking. Because he is a grad student in Emory University, studying theology, he has to read many types of psychology books. Of the many psychologists, his favorite is Wolfgang Kohler. What Kohler and two other psychologists proved was the power of the words we speak and think. Therefore, when I can across "A Poison Tree" and skimmed the poem, I immediately thought of the psychologist and my teacher.

The poem subtlety implores the passionately anger the speaker has for his foe. Even though with his friend, he could tell his wrath to disappear, with the foe, he stubbornly refused to forgive and rather sought to grow the wrath. Taking the wrath as an animate object, the speaker waters it with the tears of fear, "sunned it with smiles,/ And with soft deceitful wiles". These lines, although seemingly weird, shows the perpetuation and cycle of stubbornness. The third stanza moves to show how the feeling of wrath takes seed and bears a fruit. The significance of the wrath becoming an apple is the Biblical illusion towards the garden of Eden, Satan, and temptation. The fruit of wrath never stops growing as "it grew both day and night". The speaker is aware that the apple will tempt his foe into consuming it. The apple, which has been poisoned thoroughly, serves as a murderous trap for his foe. The speaker's expressed anger for the enemy gives him the direction to take action, rather than smother himself in the passion of wrathful contempt. Beguiling his foe and letting his plan relay just as he wishes, the foe takes the apple in order to take something seemingly precious that belongs to the speaker away. However, into the trap the foe falls and he becomes consumed and overcome with the poison. The foe is the person who managed to give the poison to the speaker and because the speaker took action of the wrath, he is able to return the poison in the murderous plan. Because we know that Blake is the poet of Songs of Innocence and Experience, and this poem is full of dark images, the poem is of experience. The poem can be seen as a warning or relief. It is a warning against taking the desire for revenge consuming an individual's mind and action as to where the individual will take another's life away. The relief part is that the individual may find satisfaction from the murderous deed, just as the speaker does, "In the morning glad I see/ my foe stretched beneath the tree"



A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

William Blake

I died for Beauty

I died for Beauty - but was scarce
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth,--the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms.
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

Emily Dickinson                                                                         

The poem has a rhyme scheme of ABCB and has the dark dreary outlook of life, just like many of her poems. This poem begins with the speaker whose death was brought on by beauty. The line of "I died for beauty" implies a sacrificial role the speaker played in order to let beauty live. Though in death, the speaker does not hint any note of regret or despair of being in a tomb. Perhaps due to the lack of time, because it is before the speaker is"scarce/ Adjusted in the tomb", the speaker does not contribute fault to beauty. Another deceased body enters to the adjoining room next to the speaker, and for this corpse, it has died "for truth". However, it is not because of death that the other corpse makes a connection between him and the narrator. It is because of who they died for and sacrificed their lives for. Therefore, they hold beauty and truth as one entity that is beyond worth sacrificing their own life for. The brotherhood and kinship they share brings the beauty and truth to mean similar things, whether it is in value of figurative or literal esteem they hold these two concepts. Though they were able to be at each other's presence, the "kinsmen met a night" where "the moss had reached" their lips and "covered up" their names. The irony in these two last lines is that the two corpses conversed with each other despite of dying but it is the only living plant, a moss, that takes away their ability to speak and their identity. It is as if they were trying to defy the natural order of life by speaking to each other and nature balancing the oddity out through taking away their source of familiarity, connection, and comfort. The end, therefore, displays silence, loneliness, and desolation. Going back to the truth and beauty, could the poem be making a point about how life is not worth living for if one does not have beauty and truth? The truth is either beautiful or something that possesses beauty is the truth. Even if the truth and beauty went hand in hand, they cannot belong together because the human kind unavoidably fall into death. The characteristics of truth and beauty are in some ways physical because they reveal an inner light of a person, idea, or an element in life. Truth & beauty and death are linked through the death of humans. People are always searching for that enlightenment of fulfillment of beauty and truth, but even if one journeys through that road, death is going to be the result. Also, in the poem, the speaker who died for beauty was barely adjusted in the tomb before the person who died for truth came. Although I do not know the whole meaning of the time, but the close proximity allows the two to be seen as something that follows one another. This poem has been hard to analyze and the one memorable Emily Dickinson poem that I remember is the poem "Nobody", which I read in 8th grade.

Hamlet Ending

All throughout watching the film in class, I couldn't stop laughing. I know that it is difficult to act out the play with the long dialogue that makes the risen emotions deflate as soon as they are formed. However, the thing that really made me laugh was the ''awkwardness' of everyone's surprised reactions and death. Although the memory is becoming a bit murky, I thought the over-dramatization of Brannagh's  version made the ending very hard to respect. Hamlet starts of the conversation with Laertes very sincerely with a respect for his family. However, that whole speech seems to be a facade through the movie portrayal when he drops the sincerity emotion. Truthfully, I don't really know what to make of the ending because I just became tired of Hamlet in general due to Hamlet's frustrating characteristic. The domino effect of killing of Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, and Hamlet (sorry to say) is so pathetic. It just proves the pointlessness of everything in all directions. What was the point of Hamlet becoming a fool, intellectual, artist, etc. if he was just going to end up dying. But in a way, I guess everyone got what they deserved. Claudius died because he committed a premeditated murder, treason, incest, and for scheming to kill Hamlet. Gertrude ended up unknowingly 'sacrificing' herself for her son because she wasn't able to do that ever since she decided to marry Claudius (if we take the side that she is innocent, that is). For Laertes, I don't think he would have fared well if he didn't die because his whole family was dead due to Hamlet, so he needed to rest in peace after poisoning Hamlet. Lastly, Hamlet 'tragically'  dies because he killed Polonius, unintentionally drove Ophelia to death, and for judging everyone so critically because the Bible does say not to judge others. I am just glad to be done with this play because as interesting as it was in the beginning, the feeling of the play dragging on and on and on really becoming an unnecessarily tiresome play. I guess, to apply to economic terms, it's like the diminishing marginal utility, how obtaining a good decreases the satisfaction one good after another. Oh, one thing I want to add is that the concept of poison is so big in this play and an interesting thing I noticed was that in Invisible Man, the narrator talks about poison many times after the first half of the book. In the book it says, "You will. There's lots of poison around" (393), This is after when Brother Tarp tells the narrator about his 19 years in prison. Brother Wrestrum pops in out of no where and starts warning the narrator, and I thought the inclusion of this quote was interesting. There a lot of weird things with the Brotherhood and his comment about the poison foreshadowed what he did to the narrator, accusing him of disloyalty.

Hamlet: Coward

I guess by picking Hamlet as the coward, I am choosing convenience because it is so obvious in multiple places in Hamlet where Hamlet can be depicted as a coward. Even though after Act 1, I was ready to read about the dashing things Hamlet was going to do in order to get this revenge, all we got instead was a tiresome, inactive, and thinking Hamlet. Because he spent so much time dwelling on the revenge concept, he couldn't take action even in Act 4! The first instance where I would like to point Hamlet out as a coward is in Act 2 Scene 1. Why? You may be wondering why I would think of this particular scene instead of a different one. The reason is because the very fact that Hamlet does not start of Act 2 signifies that he will not take action. If he were to have the passion and fervor to seek out revenge, as the ghost promised him to, he should have appeared in the beginning of Act 2. However, all we get is how Hamlet is 'acting' and 'seeming' mad. Of course, we can attribute this seemingness as a clever and witty plot of Hamlet's. But because we have read until Act 4, we know how Hamlet goes in circles with his witty words. Therefore, Polonius and Ophelia starting out Act 2 foreshadowed Hamlet's cowardliness.The long soliloquy he gives in Act 2 Scene 2, is full of him pointing out his flaws of unmanliness. He is very blunt about it saying, ""Am I a coward?" and then "Who... Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?" The rest of the soliloquy is full of his inactivity and how he is trapped under his own flaw. Of course, we take pity on Hamlet for suffering under this great pressure given by a ghost where he has to kill Claudius (although a different hero may have killed Claudius just because of the fact that he married Gertrude and stole the hero's right to throne). However, the frustration within me is not covered by the pity for Hamlet. If Hamlet is so clever and intellectual enough to come up with such mindblowing comebacks to Polonius, shouldn't he also have the brains for a better plot for revenge? Just because he puts on a play to confirm of Claudius, he should have known that he couldn't just go up to Claudius and be like 'I saw your face expression change. You are guilty of murdering my father!' and kill him. I mean come on! Hamlet should have either just killed him or framed the king of a heinous crime of some sort. Therefore, not only is Hamlet a coward, he is a very frustrating coward to me and to himself!

Invisible Man

I wish I could make up a name for the narrator but afraid to do so because it may be against the literary ethics...? Well anyway, what really bugs me about the narrator is that his immaturity and lack of respect for others. What he wants is recognition and success in a worldly sense. He only tries to suck up to people and doesn't ever put blame on himself when it's actually his fault. With Mr. Norton, I thought it was so stupid for the narrator to take the high class, rich, and powerful white man to a slum part of town where the narrator knew the conditions Mr. Norton would encounter. Dr. Bledsoe had every right to be angry at him and to want the narrator to get out of the school. Because Dr. Bledsoe put in so much effort and time into raising the quality of the black community, the narrator's actions deserved a consequence like that. Also, I really dislike how the narrator disdains everyone who he thinks is not worthy, which he judges by looking at their education background. He thinks if a person did not get an education, he should be treated like trash. His point of view goes against everything the equality activists were trying to accomplish. The lack of maturity and respect on his part makes him undergo through hardship in his life. However, if we link this to the hero's journey, the expulsion from school is the call to adventure, him resisting the temptation of reading the letter is the refusal to call, and the people he meets in his journey are his mentors. I am only on chapter 12, so I do not really know what to make of the accident that happened in the paint factory or how to link that episode with the hero's journey. However, everything seems to be going wrong for the narrator, and I feel like the most important enlightenment or realization he will face will be that he realizes what a jerk he's been behaving towards everyone. His scope of the world is still so limited and has not been exposed to much things. However, due to the factory accident, I feel like his life will encounter some unavoidable calamity that will make him into the person we saw at the prologue. Although the pace of the book is very slow and there are many times where I feel like there are too many words and description, I really want to see how the pieces fit together to make this the world renowned literature. I hope we have a class discussion on this book soon because I only know what is going on externally through the events but cannot seem to pick up on the motifs, themes, or importance of imageries.

Getting Out

Getting Out

That year we hardly slept, walking like inmates
who beat the walls. Every night
another refusal, the silent work
of tightening the heart.
Exhausted, we gave up; escaped
to the apartment pool, swimming those laps
until the first light relieved us.

Days were different: FM and full-blast
blues, hours of guitar "you gonna miss me
when I'm gone." Think how you tried
to pack up and go, for weeks stumbling
over piles of clothing, the unstrung tennis rackets.
Finally locked into blame, we paced
that short hall, heaving words like furniture.

I have the last unshredded pictures
of our matching eyes and hair. We've kept
to separate sides of the map,
still I'm startled by men who look like you.
And in the yearly letter, you're sure to say
you're happy now. Yet I think of the lawyer's bewilderment
when we cried, the last day. Taking hands
we walked apart, until our arms stretched
between us. We held on tight, and let go.

By Cleopatra Mathis

The poem is very sincere. Every line shows a sense of regret and frustration over how the speaker cannot seem to find peace in her marriage, both during and after. Because marriage is a holy alliance between a man and a woman and binds them for eternity, the speaker describes it as being in a prison. She says that they "hardly slept, walking like inmates/ who beat the walls" (1-2). The couple is stuck in a prison where every night, they try to struggle to escape the marriage. For the poem, the way the speaker ends the first line is significant because it emphasizes the comparison between themselves and prisoners. The process of the decline of marriage is described in the stanzas, and for the first stanza, the speaker illustrates the many attempts of how "every night", the couple fail in giving up their pride to please the other and in the end, seek comfort at the pool to relieve stress. The latter half of the second stanza speaks of how the marriage is "stumbling/ over piles of clothing, the unstrung tennis rackets" (11-12). The causal items of clothes, tennis rackets, and furniture show how the fights and frustration has been built upon minuscule topics. It was not an affair, money problem, or faulty behavior that deteriorated their marriage. However, maybe because the problems did not arise from such heavy matters, the speaker realizes how difficult it is to rectify their marriage. Even after their separation, the speaker still cannot forget about her husband and is constantly reminded of his presence, "still I'm startled by men who look like you" (19). I think the speaker is doubtful of herself and him in trying act as if they were "happy now". She remembers the day that they had to seek the lawyer to put an end to their marriage. The fact that the speaker says the lawyer was bewildered due to their erupted sadness. The last three lines are very ironic and emphasizes both their willingness and unwillingness to let go of each other. Even though they did feel like prisoners, the marriage has not been just a hundred percent full of imperfections. Therefore, there has to be some lingering feelings, where they "taking hands/ we walked apart, until our arms stretched between us. We held on tight, and let go" (21-23). The image provoked by these lines show how the tightly linked hands let go or gave up for them to go their separate ways.

I really liked this poem because it describes the reality in many marriages. Even though people marry for love and believe that they will always be their for each other, the love dies down. The more you love a person, it is difficult to continue that relationship and the love becomes an unimportant element in one's life. Because there are temptations and people tire of old things, many marriages disintegrate when not given the care it needs. I just hope that my friends and myself, when we find a time in our lives to marry, we will not have to suffer the hardship of a divorce.

Heaven-Haven

Heaven-Haven A nun takes the veil  I have desired to go      Where springs not fail,  To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail     And a few lilies blow.     And I have asked to be       Where no storms come,  Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,     And out of the swing of the sea.

                                      Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

The main interesting thing I noticed was that the poet is a man, but the heading of the poem is "A nun takes a veil". Why would a man choose to write about a poem that speaks of eternity in heaven, yet the heading refers to a nun. I do not know whether or not to refer back to the heading when I make my analysis. Because if the heading is taken into account, then I would say that the speaker is a female. But looking at the heading by itself, it describes the moment when a woman decides to give up her life in society and become married and bound to the church. She is giving up the life of having a husband, children, and family in order to serve God. Oh! I will say that the speaker is a woman and that the heading carries a heavy weight for the poem. The title "Heaven-Haven" is similar is spelling and connotation. Heaven is the eternal Christian 'haven' like refuge where believers of Jesus Christ will ascend to after death. Haven can be both worldly and spiritual. It is a safe harbor and a refuge for people in danger, and it can also be the whole heaven becoming one's safe haven from the world. Therefore, a nun will seek the haven in church as she serves God and will ascend to heaven after death. Consequently, once she takes the veil, she will forever be in the presence of God, which is comforting. Moving on to the first stanza, the speaker wishes to go "Where springs not fail". Spring is when everything in nature comes back to life after the harshness of winter, which means that the speaker wishes to experience rebirth continuously. For Christians, the concept of rebirth is important not just in baptism, but in everyday life because you are supposed to allow Jesus to live through you, so you have to kill the 'old Adam' and let the 'new Adam' (Jesus) live everyday. In this sense, it is clear that the speaker wishes to be cleansed everyday and never deter from the Christian life. The whole poem describes what the speaker wished and asked for in the past. The illustrated picture is where life is calm, peaceful, and perfect. Therefore, the speaker is describing a place where heaven and haven co-exists. Through taking the veil, the speaker's prayer will be answered because of the life she will lead after detaching herself from society. After she leaves her haven, church, she will enter heaven where all the things she hopes and wishes for will be in full scope of her reach. Heaven will be a place "where no storms come" and where only perfection resides. The poem is hopeful because to the speaker, there is such a place of eternal life, and she will one day be taken to live there.

Speaking

Speaking

I take him outside
under the tree,
have him stand on the ground.
We listen to the crickets,
cicadas, million years old sound.
Ants come by us.
I tell them,
“This is he, my son.
This boy is looking at you.
I am speaking for him.”

The crickets, cicadas,
the ants, the million of years
are watching us,
hearing us
My son murmurs infant words,
speaking, small laughter
bubbles from him.
Tree leaves tremble.
They listen to this boy
speaking for me.

Simon J. Ortiz                                                                                             

I am not going to research the poet this time and just see what I can come up with without any background information. The title of the poem "Speaking" is a present tense verb that signifies an action being taken place, which suggests that the poem is a sort of ever-lasting 'experience' or happening. The poem is told in first person where the narrator is definitely older than the person he takes outside. This hypothesis is made based on the line "have him stand on the ground". The speaker takes a small child who is not fully capable of walking out by himself and helps him make contact with the ground. The pronounce "I" changes into a "we", suggesting that since the child and the narrator are both standing on the ground, they are one and together. The fact that they are outside but are able to listen to the cicadas, whose sounds are million years old, depicts a scene that is within nature. In that setting, the speaker talks to ants, a very unusual thing, and uses the word 'speaking', which highlights the quote as it holds a larger meaning. Changing to the second stanza, the roles reverse and it is the crickets, cicadas, and ants that watches and listens to the people. This isn't really a personification because animals and insects can hear and watch, but the context gives the insects a greater role in the poem as they are in the position of being observers. However, it is interesting to note that the insects actually listen to the small child who doesn't actually know how to speak and are engrossed in what he is saying. Even the trees show a response by trembling. The role reversal is, therefore, not only with the insects and humans but also with the speaker and the child. The child who cannot or does not know how to speak the language is able to communicate with nature through his innocent and pure laughter. He is transmitting the pureness of society, something that his father cannot convey. Although I am not confident in the message of the poem, I think the main essence involves nature and innocence. The speaker also gives importance to insects, something that people don't give a second thought to. The stressing of the 'million of years' heighten that importance of insects because long existence connects with accumulation of wisdom. The speaker, I think, values insects a lot and the fact that he takes his child out to see the insects and talk to them shows how he wants the child to grow up having value for insects. Therefore, the poem incites the message of a connection between the human world and insects, a connection that needs to be valued and kept. The father-son generation illustration also shows the continual cycle of the meeting between nature and humans. Also, as an additional note, the reason why nature is listening to the speaker through the son may be because the child has not be influenced by society yet and can communicate the purest form of message to nature. 

Hamlet

Mrs. Clinch warned us that Hamlet is going to be a smart ass and be the over dramatic prince, but I did not expect him to really be all that and beyond. I supposed if one loved his father as much as Hamlet and has not been given the right to throne, I guess one could be as depressed and mad as Hamlet. However, if King Hamlet was so great of a king that he is described as a 'Hyperion', why is the young Hamlet not on the throne of Denmark? Hamlet, as noted by his verbal wit, is very intellectual and far out ranks Claudius in that category. He fits the mold for a king as well as and even better than Claudius. Therefore, a question is prompted to question the authenticity of Claudius's rise to the throne. How did Claudius become so well liked and respected by the servants of Denmark that he was able to ascent to the throne without much opposition? Because this play is a tragedy and has a ghost of King Hamlet, who is not able to rest in peace, I don't think it is a stretch to assume that Claudius had something to do with the king's death. During King Hamlet's reign, Claudius probably started recruiting people on his side because as many people know, you need to have a fair number of servants backing you up for an up rise. If Claudius did kill the king but did it secretly, it would have been easy for him to take the throne through deception. Also, his 'act', as I see it, towards Hamlet is kind and gentle in order to cover up the massive fear and threat he feels from his nephew. However, in order to renegade that, he marries the former queen, which in a way can strengthen his legitimacy to the throne. I thought the marrying part wasn't as scandalous as it seemed because I know that in some cultures, the same situation often occurred in history. However, after reading Hamlet's soliloquy, it became clear that even this time period does not look favorably of such action. Which is weird because Claudius was able to do those things and consolidate his power. How did the people in court  or people of Denmark view the situation? We  only know about Hamlet's point of view but if it is incestuous, then wouldn't other people  view it in the same light as Hamlet? If Claudius has been able to cloak the situation in a natural and undeceiving way and have the people at court accept this ascension to throne, he must be very persuasive and charming. I sort of detracted from what I thought I was going to talk about, Hamlet, and instead  gravitated more towards Claudius. However, it will be interesting to see what Claudius does to Hamlet or vice versa and if Claudius will ever be overridden with guilt due to the way he took over the throne.

Invisible Man

Invisible Man 

It's always significant to read the title of a work inside the work, and for Invisible Man, the first sentence of the prologue reiterates the title by saying, "I am an invisible man" (3), which puts heavy emphasis to the title. Because this book is not a scientific book, the narrator explains how the invisibility has to do with only how society refuses to acknowledge his existence; therefore, he becomes invisible to the eyes of fellow men. Due to his in-existence, he seeks to prove his existence to himself in his "hole", where it is "warm and full of light" (6). However there is a huge irony with the source of that light: Monopolated Light & Power. Monopolated is not actually a word, but I am assuming that monopole is related to it. Monopole, after doing some research, I found that it does not only not exist but it is only a hypothetical assumption that most scientist declare that it is impossible for it to exist. Monopole is where only one of the poles, north and south, exist. Although it is easier to think about a magnet and imagine it not having one of the pole, monopole doesn't really have a lot to do with magnets. However, the connection to the book is that the narrator is saying that he is getting his light, truth, and warmth from this company called the Monopolated Light & Power. Therefore, looking at the word, it causes me to doubt the narrator due to what a monopole really is. Also, to have 1,369 lights in one room, a person would probably die from the heat emitted by the lights. I understand that the literary significance is that the narrator is trying to cover himself with truth in order to escape the loneliness and invisibility by letting the source of illumination cover him, but it may all be a sign of madness. Another interesting thing is the "sense of time" that the narrator explains when he talks about music. It is obvious that he does not conform to the social structure because he 'is aware' of his invisibility. Therefore, he is "never quite on the beat" (8). Of course the strangeness also has to do with the fact that he was high, but I guess the drug helped him realize and illuminated some certain aspects. I am not going to attempt to explain what he is talking about because I don't quite understand it. One interesting thing is that there are a lot of color discussed towards the end of the prologue. The irony is that he is invisible and invisibility does not have a color, so for there to be blue, black, white and red gives another meaning to ponder about. Even though the narrator and other black people are invisible to society's eyes, they have color both physically and figuratively, which emphasizes the cruelty of society. So far, I do not know if what I have talked about makes any sense, but there are so much things I know I missed, and I think I should reread the prologue to get a better sense of what the narrator is trying to portray, especially about Ras the Destroyer and Jack the Bear.