Monthly Archives: December 2022

Mine Eyes Have Seen

Drama/Theater, Dunbar-Nelson

In Alice Dunbar Nelson’s play “My Eyes Have Never Seen ,” I believe that Nelson’s play was written to depict immoral citizen behavior such as racism, crime, racism, intolerance, and corruption. They suffered from it, and that patriotism represents progress and hides corruption. It also shows the cruelty that was between people, and the reason is the color of the skin.

I think Nelson’s play shows how cruel people are to each other in societies. In this play, it shows all the corruption and facts. The play also shows that even though their lives weren’t great, he wanted his brother Chris to join the army and serve his country. He felt he shouldn’t risk himself to defend a country that have never defended him or his family.

Final reflections

Final Reflection

I have always felt most comfortable reading and writing about fiction and non-fiction, and that was true in my writing this term. Writing about different works by Sherman Alexie cae relatively easily, and writing “The Thirteenth Night” by Ichiyo Higuchi was also not so hard, even though the story was written a long time ago, in a very different culture.

I would say that my paper about Sherman Alexie’s “This is What it Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona.” shows me at my best. I was able to use his biography “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir,” which I had read previously and really liked. And because I looked at the story through psychoanalytic theory, I was able to use many things that I know about his life. I know that Alexie is a complicated person, but I can relate to the many medical problems he has had throughout his life.

I have more trouble with poetry and drama because they’re more abstract. I do like the poetry of  Jimmy Santiago Baca, though, so didn’t mind so much analyzing “So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs From Americans.” The erasure poetry assignment was really hard for me, though. I couldn’t really get that.

 And drama was hard to analyze, both Chekhov’s “The Proposal” and Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s “Mine Eyes Have Seen. I like seeing plays performed on stage, but reading them is different, and harder.

Final Reflections

Final Reflection

Professor Perry,

ENG 201 was by far one of my most interesting courses this semester, the literature I have read has taught me that beautiful stories are worth analyzing and most of all, worth enjoying. As the course has progressed, I’ve found it easier and easier to express my thoughts and ideas regarding the pieces we’ve all read together, and I feel more confident in my writing abilities!

I enjoyed reading “The Thirteenth Night” and I also loved analyzing “Frankenstein.” These were the stories that I liked the most and I feel that my work demonstrated that. This course allowed me to express myself creatively while also exploring the wonderful opinions and thoughts of my classmates. It was fun to interact with everyone’s work and witness different assessments. Writing a short play was incredibly interesting and I didn’t realize how fun it could be to write dialogue for characters, it was a nice and fun assignment to finish off the semester (and the year) with!

My biggest challenge this semester did not revolve around a particular course or its work, but instead my own motivation. I had to push through and find discipline beyond temporary inspiration. I know that many classmates can agree, especially as we approached the colder and darker months.

Thank you so much for making this class such a pleasure. I looked forward to all the assignments! This was my final ENG course, and now as all my upcoming courses will revolve around STEM, I feel sad.

Marxism Ichiyo

Fiction, Ichiyo

Through the Marxist theory, Oseki and Roku’s interaction was greatly significant because of the different economic classes that they ended up in. They both were from poor families originally but she was able to marry wealthy and live an upper-class lifestyle while he was never fully able to become successful. She loved him when they were younger and explains that she would have married him if the choice was fully hers, but she sees the hardships that she would have likely endured in their relationship due to his position in the lower class. She is evidently not happy in her current situation with Isamu, but it does not appear that she thinks she would be happy with Roku currently either. Through the lens of the Marxist theory, Isamu is her better option, regardless of her feelings for either of them. The interaction they have takes the reader back to what her father had said earlier when discussing her miserable marriage.He stated to her that if she remained unhappy, and if she returned to being their daughter she would also be unhappy, but she would be in an upper-class situation married living a nicer lifestyle.

Feminism Ichiyo

Fiction, Ichiyo

At this period of time in Japan women had essentially no power as explained in “The Thirteenth Night”. The main character of this story is the wife of a very wealthy, successful and powerful man, Isamu, which becomes her purpose in life. As described by their marriage, she exists as a servant to him. She is to cater to his every need and accept all abuse that is directed at her in order to please him, while also providing him a child. The aspect of bearing the child is shown to be very important in this traditional marriage when she described to her parents that Isamu treated her very well up until she gave birth to their son Taro. This implies that one of her sole purposes as a wife to Isamu was to provide him with a son, and that after that happened her value as a person drastically decreased, and his treatment of her declined.

This servant-like relationship was not unique to Ichiyo’s situation, it was the culturally acceptable dynamic between men and women at the time. This is shown by her father’s views on Ichiyo’s miserable marriage. He constantly reminds her throughout their discussion that her purpose as a woman is to support and please Isamu no matter how poorly he treats her. He feels this way despite having sympathy for his daughter’s suffering. He explains that many women are miserable in their marriages as well, however they all deal with it because that is the way that things should be.

This story shows that women at the time were not viewed as individuals, but accessories to men. Ichiyo at the end of her conversation with her parents resigns herself to remain Isamu’s property which her father essentially suggested. Additionally, her father tells her that if she divorces Isamu she goes back to being “his daughter”, implying that she does not exist as an individual, only as a wife to a husband or a daughter to a man.

Chekhov, Drama/Theater

Symbolic gendering is a method stereotyping people based of suggested role in society in the play “the marriage proposal “we see flips this stereotype by making the male character complain and whine throughout the plot while the female character is very aggressive and assertive during their confrontation a lot of newly released tv shows and movies’ targeted to teenagers also flip gender roles to show their audience that gender shouldn’t be a deciding facto on how one acts we see this a lot in marvel movies. the play isn’t necessarily outdated as it does show in today society how over complicated and celebrated a proposal is a made into a big event

Alexie

Alexie, Fiction

In “This Is What it Means…” by Sherman Alexie, he describes the type of government that exists on reservations, such as the one that Victor and Thomas live in. Victor goes to see the counsel in order to receive financial assistance to go to his Dad who recently passed away in Phoenix. During this interaction, Alexie shows elements of this type of government. The first is that they are a tight-knit community of appointed individuals. They were selected by the community to assist the community. The other aspect of this government that is shown is that they are very poor. Victor asked for only $100 dollars and the counsel was not able to assist him, and they suggested that he seek help from someone else in the community, which did in fact end up working. As for Thomas’s experience within this community/government, he had been treated as an outcast. This is shown when Victor described him as the kid with a bunch of stories that no one wanted to listen to. This is also evident when they recall the story of Thomas falling and breaking his arm while the boys laughed at him and teased him.

The Proposal

Chekhov, Drama/Theater

Increasingly, in the new age of social media, marriage proposals have become more about the people watching the couple than the couple themselves. People have become hyper-fixated on getting the perfect photo to share to all their friends and family. The pressures that have been placed on people by social media may make people feel as though their lives must look “perfect” at all times. This translates to all aspects of like, including relationships. As Kitchener mentions, many times couples will have conversations about marriage prior to engagement to retain the element of surprise needed to execute a perfect romantic moment worthy of a proposal in today’s day and age. This begs the question of wether or not the proposal is even necessary. 

“Symbolic gendering”, mentioned by Kitchener, also plays a large role in why heterosexual couples feel the need to plan elaborate proposals. The ideas Kitchener discusses in her article directly translate to Chekov’s play. The couple in the play are very obviously not well suited to each other, yet end up engaged to be married by the end of the story. Their adversity is ultimately overshadowed by Natalya’s excitement at being proposed to. One can image the expectations that are placed in young women’s minds about a such an event from the time they are children. This prompts Natalya to beg her father to make Ivan return to the house to ask for her hand, regardless of the hurtful things that had been said prior. The drama of the perfect proposal is seemingly more important to the couple than the reality of what it will mean to be married.

Chopin

Chopin, Fiction

In my opinion, this question can only be answered depending on the context. Realistically, a white person will never understand the troubles that a black person deals with when it comes to racism. No matter who it is, the only way to understand would be to deal with the same circumstances, which is almost impossible. In this story, to elaborate, Kate Chopin gives the right perspective, as it is easy to tell through her writing that it is from the perspective of a white person. The facts that come down to experience are not elaborated on too much, and we only see emotions from the characters that anyone could explain to a degree. It is a basic concept to have your race revealed to you and would shock anyone to find out they aren’t who they thought they were. However, life after would require someone who understands the situation to write about. How her environment changes, etc.

Armand

Chopin, Fiction

Armand was taken aback. The hatred that burrowed itself within him was at a crossroads. His own hatred, was towards himself all this time. He thought of his wife, his child. The impact he wanted to give all along was all about himself. He wanted to give Desiree a better life, although his negative views were wiped of reason. Who was he really? Why did he try to wipe away Desiree’s past, when he shared the same heritage? Was he the one who truly wanted to switch his identity?

As he gazed upon the flames in front of him, he reached his hand out, an ember encasing his cloth.