Monthly Archives: December 2022

Marriage Proposals

Chekhov, Drama/Theater

In “Marriage Proposals”  Chekov is highlighting the fact that the traditions of marriage and proposals both have not changed. He essentially mocks the idea of the proposal by showing that the feelings expressed or felt by the characters can completely contradict the circumstances, or how they actually feel about the other person. In reference Kitchener’s article, Chekov is in a way, agreeing with her point of view that proposals are stupid, overemphasized while highlighting that they can be completely theatrical while lacking true meaning. 

Chekov also shows that the societal view on marriage, even in contemporary marriages, are largely impacted by gender roles. This relates to the point made in the article regarding symbolic gendering. Chekov shows elements of very traditional marriages such as the man asking the woman’s father for permission to marry his daughter. This still occurs occasionally in contemporary marriages/proposals, yet it is ultimately outdated. The practice of asking parental permission for a woman’s hand in marriage is certainly falling out of the societal norm, however many aspects of traditional marriage shown are still relevant today. The theatrical performance of the proposal itself is a long-standing and slightly unusual tradition, as is the depiction of only men proposing to women.

Armand

Chopin

In the alternate ending of the story, Armand is shocked and saddened by the letter’s contents. He has never known his mother, and the fact that she is part of the enslaved race is difficult to swallow. Armand feels grief and regrets what his family must have gone through, and his heart breaks for the injustice they have experienced. He also feels immense guilt for how he has treated Desirée and their child and is now filled with regret. Armand realizes that he has judged Desirée harshly and unfairly and has let his insecurities and fears get the better of him. He now knows that he must make amends. 

Armand takes a moment to compose himself before going to find Desirée. He finds her in her room, sitting with the baby in her arms. When she looks up at him, he can see the pain and hurt in her eyes, making him feel ashamed. He looks away, unable to meet her gaze. He apologizes for his behavior and tells her that he was wrong to accuse her of not being white. He admits to her that he is part of the enslaved race and has wronged her. Desirée is taken aback by his confession, but she can see the genuine remorse in his eyes. She forgives him, and they embrace him.

Armand and Desirée decide to leave L’Abri and return to Valmonde together. Armand is determined to make up for the wrongs he has done and to start a new life with his family. He begins to treat the enslaved people at the plantation with kindness and respect and is determined to ensure they have the freedom and equality they deserve. Armand works to make sure that his child is accepted by all, regardless of the color of their skin. 

Desirée and Armand live out the rest of their lives together in peace and happiness. He is a better man because of his lessons, and he is eternally grateful to Desirée for her understanding and forgiveness. The couple work together to create a better world for their son and ensure that future generations will not have to endure the same struggles they have endured. They symbolize hope and positivity in a world filled with darkness and despair.

reflecction

About Us, Final Reflection

My writing from the start of this semester has improved although not a lot. I’ve learned new ways to go about writing and fixed up my grammar a little but all in all it is better than when I first started and that is what matters. One major thing that I did learn and will be using is the felt sense writing method as it helped with getting my ideas out and flowing. 1 thing I did learn about myself as a writer is that I have a mental block that doesn’t allow me to express myself fully in writing as I am too worried about getting a grade performing well on the assignment. These 8 weeks have allowed to be learn about my potential and skills in writing \

My first piece of writing that im proud of is my essay as i had a very hard time getting started and trying to figure out what to write as I struggle with writing but when Professor perry taught me thee writing sense method I learned a new way of getting my ideas out and worrying less about trying to get everything correct. Another piece of writing would be the poems we created at the start of the semester. It was interesting seeing and new form of writing and seeing people’s creativity. I wouldn’t say any of these are my best writing but they were game me some form of freedom when writing so i wasn’t fully locked in and forced to give an idea or thought that wasn’t mine 

Time management was hard for me as I do have trouble just getting work especially for assignments that I don’t enjoy doing such as essays but I did my best to get what I could done and professor Perry made that objective easier for me as a student. Besides that the only other problem i had was with expressing my ideas 

All in all this class was very enjoyable I and i did enjoy some of the writing assignments and I learned how to be more expressive when doing so 

The Marriage Proposal

Chekhov, Drama/Theater

In the beginning of Chekhov’s play the main character Yvonne displays severe anxiety leading up to asking Natasha’s father for his blessing on proposing to Natasha. He begins to question his motive for proposing to Natasha. He states, “You just keep thinking about it and you argue back and forth and talk a lot and wait for the ideal woman to offer true love and you’ll never get married, awfully cold in here.” This shows that Yvonne is not sure if he really wants to propose to her, and also that he is only proposing because he feels he has no other option. As the movie went on, the couple discovered they had many differences, however because they both had the desire to be married, they both agreed to marry each other.

            I believe the marriage proposal is a mixture of outdated commentary but also still used today. Many couples want an extravagant marriage proposal or are desperate to get married because that is what is expected of them, while others are comfortable with just living with their partner and continuing to be together without getting married. It is not a requirement to have a large engagement, there have been many proposals that are just the couple. Some engagements are just immediate family members. Today’s society prioritizes their social media appearance; however many also prioritize their privacy and intimate moments. For example, Ariana Grande got married in the comfort of her own home, however no one knew until she displayed it on social media. Society has become more accepting of being with your partner for long periods of time, as well as being an unmarried adult and not being shamed for it.

Yes that me

LOL

thanksgiving means aunties cooking and uncles jokes.

About Us, Student Opinion

Thanksgiving makes me feel warm. When family comes around you get into a positive mood because you know you are about to be surrounded by people you love. Sometimes you can feel isolated and lonely because all your family members are busy working, and you do not hang around as much as when you were kids. That’s what makes holiday breaks so great. A chance to eat some homemade food that you know your aunty put her all into and crack jokes with your favorite uncle. It’s these special moments that lift you up and keep you going.

 
Thanksgiving as a kid meant eating turkey and learning about Native Americans sharing a meal with Pilgrims, but now as I’ve gotten older, I have realized that not just that simple. The basis of this holiday brings up centuries-old unhealed wounds for many people on this land. Spending time with your family is great, but it is important that we remember, listen to, and uplift our indigenous people during celebrations with this kind of deep negative meaning behind it. We as citizens may not be able to make much change, but we can show our deepest regrets and appreciations for those who deserve it.

Mine Eyes Have Seen

Drama/Theater, Dunbar-Nelson

In the context of moral criticism, Plato believed that art and poets in particular simply existed to poorly hold a mirror up to nature and lacked intelligence and depth, and that the arts should exist to teach piety and virtue. In the play “Mine Eyes Have Seen”, elements of both of these ideas are shown. The play primarily holds a mirror up to nature as Plato would say, in that it highlights the hardships rooted in racism that the main characters are forced to go through and it shows the condition of society at the time. However, I do not believe that the play does this poorly as Plato would suggest, as it vividly puts the reader into the circumstances of the characters invoking empathy. Nonetheless, this would mean that the play defies moral criticism

The argument can be made that through holding the mirror up to nature, particularly the racist ideals in society at the time the play is teaching virtue. Piety is not necessarily expressed in the play, however exposing the hateful nature of human beings I believe creates awareness and invokes empathy in the readers which in turn teaches virtue.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

About Us, Final Reflection

  At the start of the course, I was new to college writing. My writing skills weren’t bad but I needed some exquisite tuning.A lot of the skills I have translated over seamlessly elevated from high school till now. I was consistently excellent at receiving details and laying down a foundation. Alongside that, I’ve consistently found writing simple once I had a literary device in mind. 

     From my research, it appears that literature is a work of figurative language or beautiful language that often contains stories in everyday life. I have learned a lot about this topic and understand that literary works from the past were published through reading them in front of an audience. The writing I was most proud of is my literally analysis essay because it’s essay based on something I stand for feminist rights. This essay was very easy for me because I could understand what the writer of “ the thirteenth night “ was feeling when they wrote this.

        The biggest challenge for me during the 15 weeks of this class was managing all assignments. I feel as though that is someone I should work on so I won’t get too overwhelmed. Although most of the work was pretty understanding as long as I clearly read through the text and understood the literary work I didn’t have a hard time completing the assignment. 

        For as long as I have been in school my writing classes have always been my favorite class, because of how creative we can be. Writing can take you many places as long as you allow it. Although this class was tougher than the usual English classes I take, I truly appreciate the art in writing. I hope to continue writing and learning new things to better my skills. 

Parents

Bambara, Fiction

Teasing and using hypothetical or joking language is an incredibly complicated thing to grasp. Often, phrases are taken literally and responded to in a way they were not meant to. This is an intricate part of the english language and will be consistently heard in life. Shielding a child from jokes entirely will hurt them in the future, if they don’t develop with this crucial understanding. Joking doesn’t mean that life is unstable, it is simply a joke. It is important to work through misunderstandings as they occur, but shielding will hurt children more than protect them. There is, however, no need to pour every hard life reality and event on to a young kid. They don’t need to know intricacies of financial ruin, or every detail about drugs and sex or assault. Answering questions when asked, but not volunteering hurtful information is a way to go about this, and padding the answers slightly can also assist in teaching. Teasing kids is much different from showing them the entirety of reality, but in that case where harder subjects are questioned, denial will only lead to later hurt.

About Us

Final Reflection

The way I view my writing, is I know I am not a good writer. I realize that in my head I know what I want to write about, but when it comes to writing it on paper, it very hard for me to writing down. Everything just doesn’t make sense no more like how it did in the beginning. I know I am always going to struggle with writing because of my hearing loss in both ears. I can’t hear certain letters to pronounce a word. Honestly, I feel my writing haven’t change, and I know it not going to change. All I could do it try my best and keep on trying.

I am not really happy with my writing because I know it not my biggest strength, but the most story i enjoy writing and reading is “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin. The other one was “Gorilla, My Love” by Toni Cade Bambara. I know back then it wasn’t allowed for black and whites to be together and the baby in the story came out dark, but nowadays that is so common. Races and culture are mixed now. Gorilla my love is when the older adults say things to kids and sometime the kids take it to the hearts. I have experiences with my own kids. Those two was my favorite and also to write about it.

This semester I had and still have a lot of challenges. It is very hard to balance myself with time. I work, and I have kids of my own and on top of that I found out that I am pregnant. For two months I wasn’t able to eat or drink anything, and now I am working two jobs and full-time student, plus a single mom. This semester is very challenging moment in my life. I hope life get better.

I feel like I could have done better, if I have more time. But I appreciate you professor for teaching us and encouraging us to do our best.

final reflection

About Us, Final Reflection

I would describe my body of work this semester as a challenge I needed. Whether, it was a success or a failure, it was something I know I will grow from. What stands out to me is my actual interest in these stories. I found myself able to relate to a few characters and authors we read about. The characters and I do not have the exact same lives or upbringings, but there were some events that happened in their lives that reminded me I experienced something similar. The feminist stories where something that naturally stood out to me being that I share a common interest. Though I feel like my writing skills may not have progressed, I have discovered new writing styles that I can use to practice bettering my skills. I realized that I like creative writings like scripts and poems more than formal writing like research essays. My journey over these 15 weeks has been daring and eye-opening.

The erasure poem is the piece I’m most proud of. Its the first time I’ve expressed the personal issues I go through publicly. Although the poem may be hard to understand, I know what it means to me and how good it felt to put those emotions into writing. My experience while crafting the poem was liberating and meaningful. I gathered words that I knew explained my journey best, and the poem developed into something that made it easy for me to share.

This semester I can say I struggle with time management. Between work and school there was a unbalanced distribution of my time. My hardest class was public speaking. The work wasn’t necessarily difficult, but it was the fear of presenting that really affected me. I felt like my anxiety would take over and I couldn’t produce the high quality performance that I would have liked to and know that I was capable of doing.

Overall, this class and this semester was an experience worth having. I interacted with people, which hasn’t happened a lot since covid, and I engaged in my classes to the best of my ability. I will always constantly try to push myself. Life isn’t an easy road but its still a road worth taking.