Chapter 17 Reflection

“The piercing chill I feel” by Taniguchi Buson




This poem is so short, yet leaves you with such a significant feeling as if you know exactly how the man in the poem felt. It is about a man who is perhaps just walking into the bedroom that he shared with his now dead wife, when he steps on her comb. It portrays the feeling of the cold comb under the man's foot to death and how it must have felt to him. I can relate to the feeling of doing something so insignificant like stepping on a comb, yet that action making you remember every detail of something that happened or someone that you have lost. A poem is given power when it touches you in some way and you can relate to it.



“Embrace” by Billy Collins



This poem is about perception and the way in which we view others and how we view ourselves. It is about the “old parlor trick” where you “wrap your arms around your own body”. It says from the back it looks like you are holding someone close to you and therefore not alone in this world. From this view, people perceive you as desirable and normal. However, if you look from the front, it looks as if you are waiting for someone to fit you for a straight jacket. From this view, people perceive you as looking ridiculous and alone. It is all about how people see things, not necessarily the action that is actually taking place.



“Even the croaking of Frogs” by Hakuro Wada



This is a very powerful poem because it was written by a Japanese man who was confined to a federal internment camp. It is about hearing the croaking of the frogs on the outside of the barbed wire fence. It is not fair to him that something like a frog is able to croak on the outside of the fence when he is caged. It shows the deprivation that these people must have felt being caged like animals. It says “Even the croaking of frogs”, like everyone else was free, even the most menial animal like a frog. These frogs were free to do as they pleased and say what they wanted, but not them.

Chapter 15 reflection

“Batter my heart, three-personed God, for You” by John Donne




This poem is really interesting to me in the way that is structured. It is about a man that has committed sin and is asking God's forgiveness. The way in which the man seeks to be renewed and forgiven for his sin is very forcefully shown in his expression of word choice. It as if the man knows that it will not be an easy task for God to forgive him, but to do whatever he must in order to cleanse him of his wrongs. I especially like the part that says, “Yet dearly I love You , and would be loved fain/ But am betrothed unto Your enemy;/ Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;”. It is saying that the man wants to find God because he knows that he loves him, yet he is tied to the Devil by his sin. He is asking God to divorce him from his evil ways and take him in. Also, in the title it says three-personed God meaning God's three forms in the religious sense: the father, the son, and the holy ghost.



“Grass” by Carl Sandburg



This poem is an anti-war themed poem. It is about the bodies of war being covered up after each battle and people forgetting that they were even there. It gives you a very ominous feeling about the fact that people do not know their history. This is shown in the lines where the passengers ask the conductor where they are and what place is this, as if they had no clue that it is a part of their history. This poem makes you want to remember those people, just to tell them they are not forgotten and were just covered up as if they were never even there.



“Carnation Milk” by Anonymous



This is the funniest poem I have read lately. I think why it appeals to me is because it is so short and to the point. It is about a person who likes Carnation milk and why they like it. It goes beyond the obvious to really give you a mental picture of the type of person who would have written it though. I picture a young boy who has grown up on a farm and had to do the chores of milking the cow and pitching hay day in and day out. Its almost like a little sing song that he made up in rebellion to his chores.

Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost

I remember reading this poem in every grade through middle and high school. I think that this poem can be taken in many different ways, but I really do not think that it has to do with religion as many people usually associate it with. Frost uses the word fire to represent the desire, greed, and power of the human race, while ice is the hate, selfishness and coldness of humanity. I think what he is saying is that the world is going to come to an end because of one, either fire or ice, according to these meanings of the word. This poem could mean several things though and has been linked to religion, humanity and even the actual events of the ice age. I think the interesting thing about a poem is that no one person reads it the exact same way.

Literature

As I have been reading the past two stories we have been assigned in English class, I have realized something. It is not that I do not like classical tradgedies such as Hamlet and Oedipus, I just have a hard time reading them. I truly enjoy these stories and think that they are very important pieces of literature to read and understand. Yet there within lies the problem, it is hard to understand a language that has not been spoken in centuries. I really think that you should be required to learn more about this almost foreign language while you are still in middle school and high school. If that was the case, by the time that you got to college you would be able to understand more about the story and it wouldn't take you two hours to read fifty pages. I'm sure it would not take the average person two hours to read, but I actually like understanding what I have read and getting the whole concept of what the author is trying to portray to the reader. I know there are classes that focus more on British Literature and stories of this nature, but unfortunately when it is not part of your major as a college student you do not get all the opportunities to learn about it. This is why I think that if they expressed the importance of this literature before we got to college it would greatly enhance our ability as students to understand this beautiful literature.

My job

So I have never worked in retail before in my entire life until now. I can't say that I hate it, yet I don't get excited when I do have to go in. I especially do not get excited when they schedule you for 3:45 am on Black Friday! Now don't get me wrong I think that Black Friday is an incredible shopping day that I usually participate in every year in order to get the best sales possible. Of course this was before I worked that day! I have never had to be up that early in my life, if anything I am usually still out. So I got to go to bed at 8pm on my holiday, in order to get up at 3am on Friday. When I got there, there was already a line of about 200 or more people standing in line freezing just in order to get the best deals. When I entered it was like the quiet before the storm, no one was really awake yet and everyone sat there just anticipating the rush of greedy customers. When the doors opened the line of people filed in one by one and the roar filled the store. The next twelve hours of my life is a blur of transactions. I could not tell you what a single one of them looked like or what I said to them besides "Thank you", which I am required to say. When I finally got off an hour later than I was scheduled, I walked outside got in my car and rode home in complete silence. I jumped into my bed about 8 pm and crashed! I do not remember waking up again until twelve hours later. So needless to say my holiday was wonderful until Black Friday!

Holidays

Holidays can be a very nice time of year, especially when you get to spend them with your family. This Thanksgiving was very special because for the first time in four years I got to go to Nashville to see my entire family. It was so wonderful getting to see everyone together and seeing cousins I have not seen in a very long time! Also we had a gigantic feast layed out on the table since everyone decided to add one of their own dishes to our family gathering. So needless to say we all ate until we could hold no more and then just sat around reminiscing and laughing. I truly wish that I could go up there every year, but unfortunately my dad seldom gets holidays off. As I get older though, I realize just how important family is and how secial it is to be able to spend time with those you love while you still have the opportunity to.

Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving draws nearer, it makes me realize the true meaning of the holiday. From what I can tell most people associate Thanksgiving with the food that will be devoured or the awesome football games being watched. But is that what Thanksgiving is really about? I don't think so. Yes, the food is going to be wonderful, but what is more important to remember while our eating that food is who is sharing that experience with you. You need to remember how thankful you are to have those people in your life and how great it is that you can all come together for the holidays because many do not get to. Thanksgiving to me is all about family and remembering all the things that you are thankful for in your life and in the lives of others.

Word Count: 153

Writing

Whenever I am frustrated and need to get away from the world I lock myself in my room, which is my favorite place to be. I usually just grab any book off the shelf and immerse myself in someone else's life for awhile and it helps me not focus on my problems. If I am too frustrated to concentrate on reading, I write. It is amazing how much better you feel when you get all the thoughts out of your head onto a piece of paper. It is almost as if you are transferring the thoughts onto paper so your brain can rid itself of them and no longer has to concentrate on them. It also tends to help me see things more clearly when I write it down. When it is written out it's almost like it becomes a sort of truth that you knew but could not see or figure out. So if you ever are frustrated or can't figure something out and need relief, just write.

Point of View between Movie and Text

When you take a written work and compare it to a movie made about that work, it is

almost always different. One of the main differences is the way in which one perceives point of

view. When reading it is usually very easy to tell from whose point of view the story is being

told. In the story "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty, the point of view is third person. The reader

gets an objective view of an old woman named Phoenix who travels down a treacherous worn

path every year to retrieve medicine for her grandson, but not actually able to see into the mind

of this woman. It does, however, give us an idea of who her character really is when she speaks

aloud to herself.

The movie was much different for me. When I saw it the point of view was changed from

that of an objective third party just watching these events occur to that of Phoenix's point of

view. I was no longer just watching Phoenix travel through the woods encountering people in her

journey, but I became Phoenix. I felt her pain and saw it in her facial expressions. I think that the

movie gave the text a visual aspect that is only attained with movies.

Movies can be a great way to define characters from stories, but you also lose your own

vision or idea of how you wanted that character to be. When you read a book or a story, you tend

to visualize it the way in which you want it to be. No two people read a story the same because

you put yourself and your own life experiences within the characters and story itself. However,

when you see a movie someone else has already done that for you. They chose the actors that

would represent the characters and chose the setting that would be used to their standards not the

readers. I think this can be seen as both a positive and negative aspect of converting texts to

movies. In one sense you get to see how the characters could look as a real person and for a lot of

people this make the story itself come to life more. It is negative though because when you read

a story after watching the movie you tend to associate what you have seen, so that all you can see

when you read a character's name is the face you saw in the movie and not get it from your own

imagination.

Word Count: 429

Wish

If I could wish for one thing in the entire world, it would be to be 15 again, but with the knowledge I have today. Now to most people this seems insane. I mean who would really want to be a teenager again, but the truth is I would. It is not because I want to relive my high school years. Trust me I would not have graduated a year early if they had been "the best years of my life". There are so many reasons though that being a teenager is so much easier. I didn't have a single bill when I was 15 and I only worked because I wanted money not because it was a necessity to live. With the knowledge of how my life would turn out, I would change a lot of things that I never knew would affect me later. I wouldn't worry so much about boyfriends and I would definitely try harder in school. I wouldn't be so horrible and make my parents worry so much. I would do a lot of things differently. I guess this is my wish because try as I might I regret a lot of things from my past and it would be noce to go back and change those things.

Word Count:215

Procrastination

Isn't it funny how when we leave school and think "ahh…I have all weekend to get so much done", that it never ends up being the case. I try so hard to change the way I do things and I try to plan what days I will have time to do certain assignments, but it never works out. Either the assignment takes longer than I expected or I think that I can squeeze it in when I really have no time at all and I end up doing it at 1 am on Monday morning as usual. This is called procrastination. I truly think it is a disease and I have a full blown case! You think that you would get better at managing things when you are older, but that is simply not the case for some people like me. So instead of time management, the procrastinator just gets lack of sleep.

Word Count: 154

Questions

“Sonny’s Blues”


1. This story is told from the older brother’s point of view which only allows the reader to get his perspective on everyone’s life and see through his experiences.

2. The older brother is a school teacher. I think that his profession suggests that he is a very determined person who tried to rise above the influences that surrounded him as a child growing up in Harlem.

3. This story would change greatly if it were told by Sonny because you would see an insight that only he can give into his life.

4. The narrator writes his brother after the death of his little girl.

5. The narrator’s mother asks him to look after Sonny and makes sure to be there for him which he does not do until the end really. He tries at first when he makes him move in with his girlfriend, but that falls apart.

6. The names used are familiar names that most everyone can relate to. I mean everyone has a mother and father and a lot of people have brothers so it gives the reader a sense of familiarity.

7. I think that the statement, “Now these are Sonny’s blues”, means that this was his part of the music, like it was Sonny’s turn to make the music his own. Sonny makes the music his own by making it original and just letting go of his inner boundaries and just feeling the music.

“A Worn Path”

1. The point of view used in this story is third person and I believe it is objective because you never really get insight into Phoenix’s mind just what she says aloud.

2. A phoenix is a mythical bird that is known for strength and perseverance because it lives for a very long time much like the depiction of the character Phoenix. She is very old and yet still goes on in order to take care of her grandson.

3. I think that the way in which Phoenix’s dreams and hallucinations are portrayed as real as everything else in the story gives a very dream like quality to the story and shows the reader how her mind is working.

4. Phoenix is treated without much respect and seen as a charity case, but they are not hostile towards her. They treat her differently because she is black and it shows segregation which has always been prominent in the South and since Welty spent most of her life in Mississippi I would assume it takes place there.

5. She talks about the black dog being strong and fearless and I think that she admires that in any creature because she is that way.

6. I think that the statement of Phoenix sitting motionless as if she was in armor is a good visual statement, but also means that she was untouchable. Nothing was going to get to her or stop her from making that journey that she made yearly for her grandson.

Word Count: 497

Reflection on two stories

The stories that we have been concentrating on in English are "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Revelation" both by Flannery O' Connor. They are actually very different in the fact of their storylines, but taking a deeper look at them has led us to discover that they have great universal truths. O'Connors stories show a sense of humanity and grace within people. She shows the relationship of her characters going through a traumatic experience in order to find Grace like with the Grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and Mrs. Turpin in "Revelation". I think that O'Connor was a very perceptive woman of humanity and changes coming in the world and that we would all have to be more accepting. She shows the challenges of these changes within the very characters themselves and their unwillingness to change.

Word Count: 149

Losing a piece of your heart

Sadness is something we all experience in life. Losing loved ones and things is a part of life that is never truly fair and is always extremely sad. When you love something or someone so much and they die, it feels like you are dying inside. Like they took a little piece of your heart with them and now you are empty and missing something inside. It hurts. It always hurts. You can never truly prepare yourself for this type of pain and you can't make it go away when it is experienced. To me there is no amount of physical pain I could go through to equal the amount that a loss of a loved one causes. The pessimistic in me wonders why as human beings we love at all because everything in this world will die. It is inevitable. So why put ourselves through it. It is like setting ourselves up to hurt. But then I think to myself what a horrible way to live, to never experience that love for another even if it will eventually cost us.

Word Count: 187

Trust

Trust is something that is given almost freely to another. It is what builds relationships and what makes them stronger. Trust is an idea. A universal idea like the ones we have been discussing. No one person has the same definition of trust. Some may think that it is honesty and truth within any sort of relationship, while others see it as integrity within a person. There is a world of possibilities when it comes to this word, but there is one thing that most everyone agrees. It is easy to gain someone's trust, but once it is gone there is no getting it back. If someone loses your trust, you may forgive them, but you know in your heart that you will never trust them again.

Word count:140

Ignorance

Today, I came across a sight which is not that unusual in today's society, a teenage girl smoking in the parking lot of her work. Being a smoker since a very young age myself, I usually do not say anything at all. I do try to convince teenagers that the longer you smoke the harder it is to break the habit and that you should never start if you haven't already. However as I sat there watching her, I couldn't help but notice that not only is this a very young girl, but she also looked to be about seven months pregnant. I immediately wanted to go up to her and scream at her for being so ignorant. All I could think was how dare her. Like I said, I am a smoker and I know that I am slowly endangering my health and eventually if I do not stop it could lead to my demise. I can live with this fact, but what I could not live with is endangering an innocent unborn child that you are choosing to have. I see this more and more in today's world and especially with teenagers, the lack of respect for the wonderful thing that they are carrying. All I want to know is who is their mother? How can people be so ignorant of the dangers that cigarettes cause unborn fetuses? If you want to hurt yourself go ahead, but don't possibly ruin someone's life that hasn't even begun it.

Word count: 250

Flannery O'Connor

In general, the controversial author is not afraid to show the reader their identity through the stories that they write. One such writer is Flannery O’Connor whose Southern roots and Catholic beliefs are easily identified in her short stories. Being born and raised in the South, I can easily identify this Southern association within her stories. The South is traditionally depicted as slow talking racist people who are at the same time very gentile and demand respect. O’Connor uses this idea and her experience as a Southerner to portray characters that fit into that criteria or ideal. She associates class distinction, which has always been big in the South, between not only blacks and whites, but also white trash and respectable Southern ladies. When O’Connor talks about the grandmother wanting to be seen as a lady and then her mentioning of the plantation, it automatically makes me see the South. I think that O’ Connor uses her Southern heritage and knowledge to almost make fun of Southerners. I mean who better to make fun of then someone you know in and out. I think that she uses her Catholic background to even further the Southern portrayal in her stories. Most people think that Southerners are all devout church goers who pray every day. I’m sure that the fact that you cannot go a block without seeing a church anywhere in the South has a lot to do with this. However, Flannery O’Conner uses the depiction of these deeply religious people to not necessarily preach, but to warn those of the reality that is not always taught in churches. In her stories, all her characters have to go through some act or revelation to redeem them and become a better person. I think this gives insight to how she truly felt about the world and the people in it, in regards to religion and salvation.
Word Count: 314

Poetry

I think that poetry is one of the most creative forms of expression. I love the fact that some poems are so straight forward; while others you can spend weeks trying to figure out just what the poet meant by the coded lines. One of my favorite poets is Emily Dickinson. I think that the more raw emotion a poem provokes in a reader the better and that is exactly what her poems do for me. I started writing poetry myself and have written over 200 poems. I am very proud of my poems yet I am very shy about them also. I find it hard for me to let other people read them because they contain so much of my inner self in them that I rarely share with anyone.

Word Count: 132

Halloween

I absolutely love Halloween! Whether it is just because of the beautiful fall colors and the crisp fall air or the idea of getting to dress up and go out, it is so fun. Like many things, I do not think I will ever outgrow Halloween no matter how old I get! I know it is kind of childish to want to wear a costume and go to haunted houses, but it incorporates the magic of Halloween. As children we all got so excited to go to a store and pick out a costume or make one. Then you get to stay up late filling a bag full of candy! How can there be anything better than that as a child, ha. I guess that I still like to dress up because there are not many things you get to do as an adult that you can do as a child in this life and that is one of them. Assuming you have somewhere to wear it other than your house. Halloween is about fear and magic that you can still experience as an adult and when you're scared like that you get to feel like a child again which you rarely get to experience as an adult.

Word count: 221

I might be crazy, but I think you are.

So when I left school last Tuesday, I was driving in the pouring down rain on a divided highway when I see something move in the turn lane next to me. It was a tiny kitten sopping wet and scared out of its mind trying to figure out how to get past the traffic that was whirling around it. I immediately bust a u-turn and get as close to it as I can, throw the car in park, and leap into the road without even thinking! I grab the kitten, run back to the car, and then immediately go back out into the rain for about twenty minutes making sure there isn’t any more out there that need saving. Thankfully I could not see that there were anymore kittens, but I also could not figure out where this kitten, who besides having a busted lip is fine and sitting right next to me now, warm and happy, came from. The reason why I am telling this story is because it amazed me that when I told some people, they thought I was crazy for going through all that trouble to save a kitten! Actually it infuriated me because I can’t imagine having just seen that and kept driving, but people do it every single day. So to those people I only replied by telling them that I could not live with myself knowing I could have prevented an animal of any kind from being hit and I don’t see how they could. And to all the twilight fans in our class, I named him Cullen!

Word count : 269

A helpful editing process

Most of the time as college students when you write a paper, you are just trying to get it turned in on time and rarely take the time to make it the best paper you could have written. I know I am guilty of it. This is why I think that peer reviews are very helpful and allow you to not only see your mistakes, but give you insight to what others think about your paper. It not only lets you see the grammatical errors in your paper, but also let you know if you thesis was appropriate for the subject and that your paper accomplished the idea or theme you were trying to get across. I wish more people took critiquing or reviewing papers more seriously because it can be helpful to the author. I for one think it is great to be able to have someone else review my paper before the teacher does because it gives you another chance to fix it.

Word count: 165

"The Glass Menagerie" Rough Draft

In the play “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, all of the characters seem hindered by some element. Some have obvious handicaps, while others are more subtle. Williams develops each character and portrays their own unique handicap within them, showing that not all handicaps are physical.


The most obvious handicap is that of Laura who is referred to in the play as crippled. Laura, as a result of a childhood illness, has one leg that is shorter than the other requiring her to wear a brace on one leg. While in the play, it does not seem that the actual crippled leg holds her down, the label of “cripple” has made her think of herself as inferior to others and has made her choose not to accomplish much in life. Laura dropped out of high school because she was embarrassed of being different and thought that everyone looked down on her because she was crippled. She sees herself as different than everyone else and identifies with a little glass unicorn for being unique among all other animals just like she is. Laura’s mother, Amanda, also adds to Laura’s feeling of not fitting in by always comparing her own life to Laura’s.

Amanda is constantly referring to her past and recounting memories to her children of how wonderful her past was. She refers to the past as it she is still there captured in her own memories. As the play progresses, Amanda seems more involved in the memories in her mind than the reality which surrounds her. Amanda doesn’t feel like she belongs in this reality where the lives of her children are so very different than hers was when she was young. She is constantly comparing her past and their present as if she can’t comprehend that times have changed and life is not lived as routinely as when she was younger. Another handicap is that Amanda is raising her family alone because her husband left her. She does not have the support



of a stable relationship guiding her through the hardships that have been placed on her families lives.

Jim, the gentleman caller who comes to dinner at the Wingfield’s house, is a boy who Laura liked in school. When Laura knew him, Jim had many high expectations placed on him to be successful in his life. But after six years Jim is only working in a warehouse alongside Laura’s brother Tom and has not achieved much at all. Jim’s handicap is that he was not able to meet everyone’s expectations of him and it made him feel discouraged. At the end of the play however, Jim does not allow for his handicap to hinder him any longer and tries to better his chances of succeeding.

The most handicapped character in the play is Tom. Tom not only is handicapped, but he further handicaps himself by trying to escape it. Tom is handicapped by his feeling of entrapment and that his family is holding him back. Tom has such a longing for escape and almost idolizes his father, who left the family, for being able to get away. Tom works in a warehouse in order to help support his family even though he spends most of his time writing poetry and looking for ways in which he could escape. As much as Tom wants to get away he does not leave because he feels responsible for his family. So in order to cope with the guilt of staying and the entrapment feeling, he turns to alcohol as his escape and in turn handicaps himself further.

The handicaps that Williams portrays in each character are ways of letting the reader see the character for all of his or her flaws. The reader is able to identify with each character and identify with the overall depressing nature of this family. Each handicap is one in which the reader may have encountered in their own life and that is what makes the play more realistic. As Williams shows in the various characters in the play, handicaps not only are capable of holding us down physically like with Laura, but also the psychological effects of a handicap that can hinder one’s own fulfillment of life.

Wod Count: 702

Reading

As children, we have the pleasure of being read to by our parents, but as we get older some do not take the time or even like to read. I find this so difficult to understand because I love to read. A story, whether it is the fantasy stories that we all thrived on as children or the literary classics that we learn to appreciate, all have a magical quality to them. Stories take a general concept or idea and let each person interpret it into their own feelings and get something completely different from another person who reads it. And like we are learning in class you don't even have to like the story because that in itself is a feeling that you are taking away. I do think that everyone should have an open mind to others ideas and that is what reading a book or story is all about. The reader should recognize the feelings that the story evoked in him or her, whether it is hate, sorrow, understanding, love, etc, and appreciate that the author was able to achieve that.

Word count: 185

College

Life is hectic. It is certainly not fair and the older you get the more you have to bust your butt to survive! Everyone wants a good job that pays a decent amount of money in order to support oneself and have a stable life. And that's where college comes in. As kids we are brainwashed by every teacher we have with the idea that you must go to college to succeed and this for the most part is a relative truth. But my favorite part of this statement that we have all heard is what the heck they decided to leave out. Sure they tell us, "it won't be easy" and "you have to try really hard", but they would never want to paint us the realistic picture of what college is really like because it is scary! College is a wonderful and enlightening experience, but when they said hard what they should have said is exhaustive, brain-hurting homework, papers, and notes that only end for approximately 3 weeks between semesters hard! They leave out that if you're not one of those lucky little boys or girls that get the free ride to college either because you didn't slack off in high school or your parents are rich enough to pay for your college experience, that you will have to get loans and be able to balance school with a full time job in order to survive and pay back the loans that are now up to your ears. You know who my favorite people are though, not the teachers who completely under exaggerate the rigorousness of college, but those that say "OMG that was the best four years of my life". They are liars. College is a fun experience, but you soon realize that if you are there only to party and slack off then you're going to fail and be there for a lot more than four years or drop out. And trust me going back to college is a lot harder when you are older even by only a few years.

Word count: 358

Streetcar Named Desire

Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play that everyone should definitely see in person in order to capture the raw emotion of the play itself. In the play, there are four main characters Stella, her husband Stanley, her sister Blanche and Stanley's best friend Mitch. Stella and her husband Stanley live in a small rundown apartment in Louisiana which is a great deal different than where her and her sister Blanche came from in Laurel, Mississippi where they lived on a plantation. One day, Blanche shows up at her house and claims to have lost the plantation and has to stay with them for several months. Blanche is a very eccentric lady who is obsessed with men and does not get along with Stanley who she sees as being in a lower class than she and does not understand why her sister is with him. The play has quite a few sad aspects to it like the violent nature of Stanley who has a tendency to hit his pregnant wife and Blanche who turns to alcohol to ease her mental problems. Blanche gets involved with one of Stanley's friends, Mitch, so he decides to take it upon himself to find out more about this woman who showed up at his house and finds out a lot of disturbing things and that she is known around Laurel as a crazy person and later has her committed. The play is all about the struggle between family and life and how nothing is ever as it seems. It is a very dramatic and enlightening play and the Hatiloo Theatre of Memphis did a great job in its production!
Word Count:293

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play that centralizes around the idea of escape. The play is about a family's tension during the 1940's and their dreams for one another and dreams for themselves. Tom who has become the breadwinner for the entire household, due to his father leaving, who lives with his mother Amanda and handicapped sister Laura. Tom looks up to his father because his father actually had the courage to leave which he wants to do, but instead Tom just goes out every night after work and drowns his sorrows in alcohol. Amanda is a strange character who comes across very child like in the way that she thinks and she is obsessed with the past and spends most of her time withdrawn into her own memories of a young lady. Amanda is obsessed with her daughter Laura finding a man who will come and take care of her and so they will not have to worry about their future. Laura is the most pitiful character in the play because not only has she been labeled as a cripple, but she has let that label define her character. She is constantly playing with her little glass menagerie of animals, whom she relates with because they are also so breakable. Laura's character does however rise above this inferiority complex when an old crush, Jim, gets invited to dinner by Tom as her gentleman caller and tells her that she need feel that way. Just when you think though that the play just might have a happy ending, you find out that Jim is engaged to be married and leaves. Even though this play is kind of a downer because of all the pity of the characters, it does give a slight hope for change at the end and gives readers an insight to how life must have been like then.

Word Count:318

Mike McCarthy

The controversial writer and independent filmmaker Mike McCarthy came to the University of Memphis last Tuesday as a guest speaker. Even though students were anticipating a lecture revealing insight to his latest film Cigarette Girl and how taking a written piece of literature and turning it into a film works, Mike McCarthy presumably had other intentions. He touched very little on his film only giving students information on what it was about and the characters in it. He was mostly concerned with promoting himself, his other works, and his controversial views on pop culture and education. Students did learn about the writers dysfunctional past and how his obsession with comic books led to his career of drawing comics as an adult. He uses his past for inspiration and tells students aspiring to be artists and writers that you have to take that messed up part of your life and rip it wide open and work with it and that's were creativity and inspiration comes from. He even goes as far to criticize schools and colleges and encourages students to drop out because all they need to know, they will learn from experience in the real world. Even though it was a very interesting lecture, I believe that it was not necessarily the lecture most attending students were expecting.

Word count:220

Cigarette Girl

The movie "Cigarette Girl" is very hard to imagine as a written piece of literature, but I truly think that once you see a movie it is hard to differentiate yourself from the actors in the movie and allow yourself to see the characters for themselves. But as I watched the movie I tried to imagine how the writer would have written it out on paper and how much detail he would have to go into to show the amount of descriptiveness that he was able to portray with his movie. The main character of the movie is Cigarette Girl who is a young woman who sells cigarettes in the smoking section for a mob-like group of people that hang out at their headquarters Vice City. The movie is set in 2035 when cigarette smoking has been banned in the city and people who still choose to smoke are restricted to the smoking-section of the city and a pack of smokes cost sixty dollars! Cigarette Girl deals with three main issues in the movie. One is her grandmother who is the only person that she has left in the world is dying from emphazyma in a hospital in the city. Also at the beginning of the movie, Cigarette Girl gets fired from her job because she doesn't show up for three days due to her grandmother being sick and they know that she has been undercutting the prices of the cigarettes and selling them for fifty dollars. So now they are replacing her with a younger and more trainable cigarette girl. On top of all of this you get to see Cigarette girl face her personal demons and go through hell while trying to quit smoking. This guy with boots and a cowboy hat keeps appearing throughout the movie and at first it doesn't explain who he is, but then you realize that he is a resemblance of the iconic "Marlboro Man" and that he is just in her head. The use of this symbolic figure is to show her personal struggle with her addiction. I really thought that the way in which the writer developed her character so fully that you could understand her pain and strengths was amazing. The movie was definitely an experience I enjoyed.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates

Group 1:

             The story, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates is dedicated to Bob Dylan because of a song that he wrote called “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”. Both the song by Dylan and the story by Oates are loosely based on the true story of Charles Schmid, who preyed on and murdered three young girls in Arizona. Dylan’s song is very cryptic in its meaning, like a lot of songs can be, and I believe that Oates wanted to expand upon the ideas from his song by writing a story. I think that she dedicates it to him because she wanted to give him credit for inspiring her to write a longer version of his song.

Group 2:

               In the story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates, Arnold Friend is a creepy older guy who tries to appear young in order to prey on young girls like Connie, the main character. He starts off just watching Connie at the diner, but then he says to her in passing, “Gonna get you, baby” which is a clue to what happens at the end of the story where he shows up at her house when she is alone. While at her house he tries to calmly convince her into getting in the car with him and his friend to go for a ride, but to no avail and that’s when he threatens her and talking very sexually. Arnold Friend is portrayed as a crazy predator who wants to rape Connie and in the way that he talks; she would not be his first victim.
        I think that Arnold Friend is a very appropriate name for this character because he is trying to convince her that he is her friend who is her age and doesn’t want to hurt her. Like when he says, “I wanta introduce myself, I’m Arnold Friend and that’s my real name and I’m gonna be your friend, honey…”. He tries to do everything he can to reassure Connie that he is an okay guy and that she shouldn’t be scared to go for a ride with him like the way he is dressed. Arnold Friend dresses in clothes that all the high school students wear to try to appear like people Connie’s own age and appeal to Connie because she likes the boys her own age that dress like that. He even talks to her in a sing-song kind of voice that is very calm and inviting. One of the very first thing that Connie notices is his car, it is a bright gold sports car of sort that has writing all over it including his name and the secret code 33, 19, 17. The significance of the car in the story is Arnold friend uses the writing on it to get her attention and the fact that he has a car is very appealing to Connie considering she is always wanting to get away.

Group 3:

            Connie is a rebellious young girl who sneaks away from the mall and goes out with boys and to a diner across the highway unbeknownst to her mother. Connie’s mother is very clueless as to her daughter’s actions and other life away from home. She rarely has a good thing to say about Connie and only hurts her relationship with her daughter by constantly nagging her and praising Connie’s older sister June. June is portrayed as her mother’s favorite and Connie’s complete opposite. I think that June resents Connie for being so pretty and popular with the boys and so does not try to have any relationship with her. June seems like a goody two shoes that would never do anything rebellious like Connie does. Oates does not give us a very big idea of the father, but she does tell us that he works, comes home, eats, reads, and rarely talks to anyone. He seems like a very selfish person that would rather have his peace and quiet than know what is going on with his own family. I think that Oates limits the role of Connie’s family because they are not very important in her story except for why she is so rebellious. Other than that they have little to do with the conflict of Arnold Friend and Connie.

Group 4:

         The setting of the story is very important in the sense that it portrays Connie’s constant struggle within herself to break free from all barriers like the small town she lives in. It also sends a message to the reader that even in a small town there can be danger. I think Oates chooses this setting because it could be any small town with a shopping plaza, diner and highway and the reader can relate to that. I also think that she chose it to incorporate some small details of the true story of Charles Schmid that inspired her to write this one. If you look up the Charles Schmid murders it was widely known that he use to hang out at a diner that backed up to a highway much the same as in the story.

Iterations of the same story

        One story can be interpreted into many different stories based on who the author is or even the type of literature it is. Most of the time, unless giving just a factual rendition of events, the author’s own thoughts and ideas of the story that inspired them shapes what their own story becomes. That is why so many iterations of the same story can be found. One true story that inspired many writers resulting in quite a few different iterations was that of Charles Schmid, who was found guilty of murdering three young girls in Tuscon, Arizona in the early 1960’s.

        In the non-fiction iterations of this story, Murder in the Desert, Crime: Secrets in the Sand, and Arizona: Growing up in Tuscon, the true story does not change much just some give more facts than others. Murder in the Desert is a story by the attorney present at the trial of Schmid who goes into detail about the crimes and in describing Charles Schmid. They all three say that he was a young athlete who was pretty popular with the girls, wore makeup, and bragged about killing the three girls. They all said that he put things in his boots to make him appear taller, while varying on the actual objects used. While they all seemed to give pretty factual information on the case, each authors portrays a different view on the subject. While one seems to blame the friends of Charles Schmid that he supposedly bragged to for not coming forward sooner, the other puts the blame on the parent’s obliviousness to the lives of their teenagers.

         In the song by Bob Dylan, “Baby Blue”, it is harder to see the original story because of the way it is interpreted into such a vague perception of the idea. Dylan refers to a girl and a predator, but he also differs in the sense that he is almost saying that it’s all over now like the girl is okay. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates is actually created from the Bob Dylan song, but it still portrays some of the details that the original story does. Joyce talks about the creepy older guy who preys on younger girls and how he stuffs his shoes to make him taller ,but he only goes after one girl in the book and does not murder her. She even mentioned the girl having a sister and portrayed a busy road in which the girls cross to get to a burger joint, which was mentioned in Arizona: Growing up in Tuscon. The movie Smooth Talk is very much an elaborated version of Joyce Carol Oates short story and does not vary too much on the critical points of her story. But while Oates leaves the fate of the young girl up to the readers imagination, the movie portrays the girl getting raped but then being able to go home which is very different from the three girls being murdered in real life. In the YouTube version of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, the main characters are much the same as in Oates version, but the ending is changed where the girl is not harmed at all. This version is more of a spoof than an actual interpretation of the story.

          In all of the stories, the true character of Charles Schmid never really changes in the sense that he is a predator and goes after younger girls. Many of the stories keep the details about Schmid like the make-up and fact that he tries to make himself taller, but vary in the way that they tell it and how describe his nature. The iterations of the stories vary greatly because of each individual author’s beliefs and perceptions of the original story and how they want to retell it to make it their own.

Word Count: 654

Behind the stories

               When you read a story you automatically interpret what you read and it usually makes you feel something unique to you that someone else reading it may not have felt. That is the one of the main purposes of a story to evoke feeling, but sometimes it is also to portray an underlying concept or idea. This idea or value to the reader is not always easily seen and so you have to break the story down into parts that you can understand and eventually see what the author is saying. The breaking down of a story can be done usually in three main parts: the ingredients such as plot, length, characters, and time; the process in which the writer structures the piece or story; and the made thing such as the moral or value the story portrays to the reader. So taking this notion of breaking stories down, we can see a lot more of the ideas and concepts portrayed when we tear apart the story and poems we have been reading in class “A&P” by John Updike and the two Sharon Olds poems, “Rites of Passage” and “The Girl at the Boys’ Party”.

         When I read “A&P”, the story did not really do much for me and all I saw was a boy quitting his job in a noble but vain way to get the attention of a girl that he liked. But then I broke it down and it is so much more than that. Updike uses the setting of the boy, Sammy, working in a small town grocery store to build on the uniqueness of the situation that was occurring. He uses the characters Sammy and Queenie to display the trope, or common theme, of the rich girl/ poor guy that many readers have heard of which gives you a familiarity with the story. Referring to all the other shoppers as sheep shows the conformity of the time in which he wrote the book and that Sammy standing up for the girl was an act of rebellion against that conformity. He also expresses a sense of vain heroism in relation to Sammy, which to me is trying to tell the reader that sometimes acts of heroism do not always get rewarded.

          Sharon Olds’ poem “Rites of Passage” seemed similar to “A&P” in the sense that I thought this poem was really just about a mother admiring her little boy standing up for the sake of his birthday party and ending a dispute between his friends. But when I broke it down I saw how Olds used so many metaphors and similes comparing the likeness of the little boys to men. She refers to the young boys as “short men”, generals, and small bankers and uses irony with the fight and “violence” in the setting of the birthday party. The fact that she describes the son as a mother or parent gives us the feel of a parent/child relationship. She uses the conversation of the young boys to build the rest of the poem around, which she structures each line as boy, man, boy, man. Ultimately giving the reader the idea that Olds’ sees men as boys and boys as men. An underlying sense of conformity can also be seen in this poem in the way the little boys are trying to all fit in amongst one another at the party.

          Both of these pieces show a great deal of underlying conformity and the same is with “The Girl at the Boys’ Party”. Olds’ poem is about a girl who is trying to fit in at an all boy party while remaining calm and collected just doing math in her head. But when you break it down you see that she uses the math as a play on words to describe the situation at hand. Referring to the little girl as “indivisible as a prime number” saying that she is basically untouchable and she says, “and in her head she’ll be doing her wild multiplying” which makes us think that she really isn’t thinking about math at all. And she infers how the boys at the party might see the girl when she makes reference to the girl’s bathing suit as food. She uses all this to give the reader a feeling of perhaps a parent witnessing this scene of a coming of age in the child’s life. Both of Sharon Olds’ poems give the reader a sense of how the parent feels in each situation, while in “A&P” you get to witness the characters feelings first hand.

Word Count(770)

"Rites of Passage" and "The One Girl at the Boys' Party" by Sharon Olds

             A portrayal of different kinds of heroism can be seen throughout the works of Sharon Olds' poems compared to the heroism seen in John Updike's "A&P". The heroism portrayed in "A&P" is that of a boy,Sammy, standing up for a girl, who he likes and thinks is being treated unfairly, by quitting his job for her. While the poems by Sharon Olds show a different kind of heroism than Updike's story, I believe they do all share a universal idea of heroism. "Rites of Passage" is about a little boy's birthday party and his mom witnessing a quarrel between the "short men" and her son speaking up and taking control of the situation before it gets out of hand. The heroism by the boy in this particular poem can be identified with Sammy in a sense that they both take control of their very different situations. In "The One Girl at the Boys' Party", a little girl is watched by her mother at a party where she being the only girl remains calm and collected in spite of this fact.It was very difficult for me to see the heroism in this story just because it is more of the mother's view of her daughter being the only girl at the party. I think that the two poems are more about the heroism that the mothers see in their children and not about the children really trying to be heroes like Sammy is in "A&P".

Word Count:(246)

An Interview with John Updike

              In this interview, John Updike reveals why he chose to write his short story "A&P" and gives the reader insight to his feelings on the story and its characters. The story "A&P" is about how an adolescent boy, Sammy, who works in a small town grocery store quits his job over three girls that come in wearing only bikinis or at least that was my portrayal of the story. I think this interview was especially interesting because it really made me see the story for how Updike wanted it to be portrayed. Updike portrays Sammy as not only a love struck teenage boy, which is how I saw him, but as much more. He says Sammy is a rebellious, blue collar adolescent longing for a white collar girl, who in turn quits his job in a noble act of standing up for this girl. And even though I saw Sammy’s act of quitting his job as noble, I believed that it was just all for the attention of “Queenie”, the girl that he liked. But Updike’s portrayal really made me see an underlying theme that wasn’t so evident to me when I read it. Updike explains that Sammy also represents a boy who is reaching out of his norm and striving for something better in life. That Sammy is saying he is not going to be a sheep, which is how Updike refers to the customers of the A&P, he is going to do the right thing and just take the consequences. This explanation of Sammy really did shed some new light on his character for me and allowed me to see him in a more noble way. Even though I’m still not sure I would go as far to say that he is a hero, at least not by my definition of the word.

Word Count: (305)

Heroes

          The term hero is used so frequently in today's society that it has really lost its true value.Everyday there is a story in the newspaper or on the news about an athlete, a cop, or even a politician who is being referred to as a hero for what they said or did. I do not mean to say that some of these people may not in fact be actual heroes to some people, but for the most part I believe they have other motives. Even when you look up the word hero on the internet, most of the sites that come up are on people that I would never consider a hero simply because I think of heroes as being more than just a famous person. For example, some websites say that heroes of the twentieth century should include people such as Amelia Earhart, Michael Jordan, and even Muhammed Ali. I'm sure that some see these people in enlightening ways or as their own personal role models, which is perfectly fine, but I do not believe that makes them heroes. The may show heroic qualities like bravery or courage and I think that’s why we associate the word hero with so many different people.

         I believe that a hero is someone that is courageous, strong, brave and above all selfless. A true hero does not necessarily think before he acts because he is just doing or reacting to what he thinks is right. Heroes do not think of the peril involved in the act of saving someone's life because they are not thinking about themselves or what could happen to them. All the true hero is worried about is the person or people they are trying to help. I think the real heroes are the ones that do not take the credit even when it's publicized and brought to everyone's attention, unlike a lot of the fame hungry people we call heroes every day. It is the soldier who deserved the Purple Heart for saving so many people's lives but refuses to take it because he did not do it for the glory and recognition. Or the firefighter who ran into the burning building to get one more person out when they tell him it's too dangerous. In those two examples, I don't think its about that person "just doing their job", it's when they go above and beyond where not many other people would go to save someone's life, that to me is a hero.

         But it is because we just throw this word hero around so loosely and have such an indirect definition of it that we recognize people who are just doing good deeds to get attention or for ulterior motives like Sammy. I do not consider Sammy to be a hero because he was just trying to impress the girls by quitting his job. Yes I do believe that it would have been a very noble act in the way that he stood up for the girls, but I do not consider that act an act of heroism. And the only reason why he stood up to Lengel is to get the girls to see him and in hopes of catching their attention. I really do not think that standing up for something makes you a hero in most cases though and especially not when you look to gain something from it.

Chapter 1 Questions

Chapter 1 Questions Page 6: 1. The personalities of the North Wind are eager, acts without thinking, and very persistant on winning. While the Sun has a very different personality that shows he is calm and sure of himself. 2. The North Wind's efforts are ineffective because it made the man cling to his cloak the harder he blew. 3. The Sun was successful in his attempt because he shone so brightly and directly that it warmed the man rather than chilling him like the efforts shown by the North Wind, resulting in the man taking his cloak off. The Sun was patient in his attempt unlike the North Wind. 4. The Man serves as a test subject, a mere bystandard in there challenge. 5. The moral is persuasion is better than force meaning that you are more likely to get what you want by calmly persuading someone to do something rather than go about it roughly and forcefully. People in general want to feel like they have a choice and when you force someone to do something, you are taking away that choice. Page 8: 1.I believe that the exposition of this story is located in the first sentence where it portrays the characters and setting of the story. Chuang Tzu uses two sentences to set up the dramatic situation. 2. The protagonist changes the subject and mentions the turtoise to paint the two high officials a picture or to make a point of how he views the offer at hand. Instead of answering them directly, he uses the visual of the tortoise lying there dead to make them actually listen to and understand why he would object such an offer. I believe that it does serve a purpose that he asks the officials a question he already has an answer to because it is kind of like a confirmation that was already understood. 3. In this story, Chuang Tsu is a free loving non conformist who would rather live his life as he wishes than be honored for a life he does not want. Page 19-20 1. The details about the shoppers in the supermarket having a one track mind and the details given from a teenagers point of view seem particularly true to life for me. The close attention to detail makes you feel like you are there at the supermarket seeing and feeling exactly what Sammy is. 2. Updike draws more on Sammys mentality and personality than on any physical characteristics except for his age being 19. Sammy shows the traits of a teenage boy being bored at his job, lusting over girls, admirable in his unseen attempt at heroism, and immaturity. I do not believe he is any less of a hero when he wasn't seen by the girls beccause he stood up for something that he obviously felt stronly about at the time. Sammy is more fully portrayed than the doctor in the sense that you get to visualize more of his mentality. 3.The exposition seems to be when the three girls are being described and the setting of the supermarket. The portrait drawn of Queenie shows that this is not a usual event for that supermarket and that she is not like most of the usual people there. 4. Sammy goes from just seeing the girls as an object of his lust that amuse him to people that he feels that he needs to impress and stand up for, even if it is just to get there attention. 5. I believe the dramatic conflict becomes apparent when not only the manager notices the girls but also when the customers do. It sets up the fact that they don't belong there.The crisis becomes apparent when the manager comes over to talk to them. The climax of the story is when Sammy says he quits. 6. Sammy quits his job to impress the girls by standing up for them. 7.I think that when Sammy talks about the way that Queenie made him feel inside just by looking at her forshadows that he will have sympathy for her. 8. I understtod from the story that Sammy lost his job because he stood up for a girl that he wanted to impress. Sammy sees that he probably made a mistake seeing as how him quitting did nothing to impress the girls and now he has lost a job and has to face his parents that got him that job. 9. Updike makes the comment that customers are like sheep with one track minds that can easily be distracted by something out of there normal routine happening.