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.