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.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
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..
Sunday, March 9, 2014
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
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.
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