Amalia Lima

I was surprised by the girl’s perception of the surrounding reality, in many of the vignette. But a start was made in the vignette “My name” In particular, her perception of her grandmother, who was born in the year of the horse. Surprised beyond her years by adult awareness of the problem of a woman’s place in the world. And with a clear goal that she definitely does not want to inherit a window seat. It can be seen that from an early age, the protagonist of the story wants to become a strong woman with her own rights. Very strangely, I was intrigued by a moment not really related to the main actions, but with the music box in “Girl’s furniture bought and sold”. The place itself and the seller are described rather gloomy and mysterious. It’s a dark place, with one dirty window, where the owner won’t even turn on the lamp until he’s sure you have money. The place was like a labyrinth with narrow passages where it was easy to get lost. The seller was uncommunicative. And in the middle of all this, they find a strange object, the owner says that it is an old music box. The description of the music it plays also captivates my imagination as much as possible. In the end, the old man says that it is not for sale, making me fantasize about what kind of box it is and what kind of story it has. I was puzzled by vignette “Those who don’t” which tells us about the feelings of people from outside who got to the protagonist’s neighbourhood. They were afraid of it. But it’s not a surprise because I can imagine how does it look like, especially those times, and knowing the treatment to such kind […]

 In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” we can observe a motif similar to fairy tales. The main character is a fifteen-year-old girl entering adulthood, who is discovering herself and naturally has conflicts with her parents. The mother, according to the girl, is jealous of her beauty, since her beauty has long sunk into oblivion. The oedipal problem of mother and daughter; a mother who feels that she is growing old against the backdrop of a beautiful and flourishing daughter, at the same time, she feels that she is losing control over her daughter and fades into the background. By the way, the mother copes with the older sister of the main character, most likely because , at the time of her growing up, her mother was younger. And the daughter believes that she is better than her mother and her sister in everything. Also, in the story, like standard fairy tales, there is a weak figure of the father, who sits with his head down, does not talk to anyone, and naturally is not able to perform any functions of the father. According to the Bettleheim, “it is the father’s duty to protect the child against the dangers of the outside world, and also those that originate in the child’s own asocial tendencies. The mother is to provide nurturing care and the general satisfaction of immediate bodily needs required for the child’s survival”. We understand that the father is completely unable to do this, and the mother is not able to understand and help her daughter with understanding her growing up and her love and possibly erotic unrest. After that, Friend appears in the story, a person from outside, in part, perhaps his name was chosen just like that, a friend is not part of the family. […]

In preparation for the discussion of the stories for our discussions, I prefer to read a story several times, form my own vision about it, and only then read articles that analyze this text in order to consider the story from my own subjective point of view and not be attached to the thoughts of scholars. After reading this story, I fixed three thoughts: the first is terrible violence, but not in the form we are used to, but in a verbal one, the very concept of which curdles the blood. Secondly, this is a gender issue: in particular, the exact delimitation of the role of a woman in this story is noticeable on the basis of two sisters. Either you are an exemplary family woman, a housewife, etc. (remember the cult of femininity) and the second is our protagonist, also a rather stereotypical girl who is more interested in appearance and boys than any other issue. As well as the dialogue between Koni and the Friend, he really reminded me of modern gender realities, including today’s one. And the third is something terrible and supernatural, invisibly present in this story. There are a number of interpretations of this story in Corb’s article, such as initiation or inverted fairy tale, the diabolic motives, feminist allegory. I would like to note that the story is quite creepy, provided that there is not a single scene of violence or physical rudeness here. The author in this case refers to symbolic violence. According to wiki “symbolic violence describes a type of non-physical violence manifested in the power differential between social groups”, but why does the author use this phenomenon in the story. What does it describe? I believe that the main message of the author is a feminist message, symbolic violence between gender […]

Speaking about several poems of this week, I can say that “My last duchess” impressed me the most.  So firstly, I want to say that before reading the article I always thought that one reading of the poem is enough to interpret it in an appropriate way. After first reading, I caught the description of the duchess and created an image of the person she was, as far as the poem mostly consists of the description of her personality and appearance. “…too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere”. So it was a kind and openhearted woman. So, after first reading, for me it was a kind of drama about the young and beautiful woman who passed away too early.   However, after several readings, the personality of the narrator (her husband) has started to be disclosed to us on the basis of his words. It becomes clear that he was a strict, cruel person, who was trying to restrict the life of his wife, and probably finally killed her. “Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together”.  And after understanding that, I thought that this cruelty and relation of the narrator to his wife could be the unique code, the answer to this poem, with the help of which we can get the message of the author. But with the help of a video lecture about this poem, I learnt that this code “doesn’t feet”, so and  searching for “one universal code” is a mistake of a reader. 

“Good poetry reading is part attitude and part technique”. I want to start by saying that during our course, I carried over a few thoughts for myself. The first, concerning the goals and objectives of art and literature in particular. I have always believed that literature should have a purpose. Now it seems to me that literature owes nothing to anyone. However, if a universal thesis arises, we can say that its goal is our emotional and mental response. All literary devices and art forms appear for this purpose. Therefore, I understand the word “attitude” as a reaction to what has been read and the following interaction. Thus, a kind of dialogue between the reader and literature takes place. However, in order to start this dialogue, we must have a number of knowledge and skills, or techniques. This is especially true of the genre of poetry, the genre of the most capacious and more complex “interlocutor” than prose. Form, rhyme, literary devices, they all build our experience and perception of poetry. Sometimes, you need to understand the background of it. Just recently, for example, I read a poem that tells about a letter that came to the mother of a soldier during World War II. The lines of the verse were composed in such a way that they appeared with a triangle. These forms of letters were sent to mothers, wives and children of soldiers from the front. People were in trepidation and horror opening such letters with the hope that their husband, son or father is still alive. The use of such a form prevails over the feelings and sensations that people experience. However, if you are not aware of this fact, it will be just a poem in the shape of a triangle. 2. After reading sonnet 18 […]

Comparing these two poems, it can be defined that they are quite different in many ways: Form: “How Do I Love Thee?” includes 14 lines. It is a classical sonnet size, while the card has only 13. Also, according to the video lecture, the shortest lines in the poem should be important and consist of poetry. On the postcard, the shortest line is the following: “as well as my”, which doesn’t make sense, because the shortest line will definitely catch our attention. Rhyme: Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses the abba (ways, height, sight, grace) abba (day’s, candle-light, right, praise) cdcdcd (use, faith, to lose, breath, choose, death) rhyme form. It’s impossible to define the rhyme scheme on this postcard as there are no rhymes there at all. Imagery: there are many examples of imagery in “How Do I Love Thee”, such as “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height”, “With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath”, “I love thee to the level of every day’s”. Also, the author uses other literary devices. Alliteration: “I love thee with the breath”,simile: “I love thee freely, as men strive for right”, hyperbole “I shall but love thee better after death” (here I’m not sure, because maybe she is just  very religious kind of person and has a strong believe the life after death), repetition: “I love thee, I hove thee…”. All these devices create the imagery and make the reader feel more active. Speaking about the card: the author just declares the fact why he loves the person he/she addresses these lines, so they don’t create an imagery effect. There is only one case of repetition here: “Why do I love you so much?”. The subject of these two works is the same. This subject is love. However, […]

“If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away” Mrs. Mallard, in fact, is full of dreams and hopes. Moreover, dreams are not about something specific, because it doesn’t matter what it will be: gold, prospects, position in society, but rather about choosing what to dream about. That she can do something without looking at her husband and society,  decide for herself where to go and who to be.  “Freedom, freedom,” she whispers, long-awaited freedom. “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.  Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She rejoices simply in the fact that, from now on, she is free, and no matter what the days are, the main thing is that now they are only hers. “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed” All the feelings that burst out at once lay deep at the bottom of her soul, under the pressure of the norms of society, and the power of her husband.  However, his death in a storm brings all the “pearls and weed” out.  She is happy.  We can see the parallel of the environment and its feelings.  In the spring, all living things begin to live anew, and bloom.  She also looks to the future in anticipation of a new life. “But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide” Through the dramatic irony of the last sentence, we see that no one guesses what was in her soul, what kind of person she really is.  Because no one cares, generally.  Since a woman is only an object in the cult of womanhood, having only a number of utilitarian functions. Having escaped from the dungeon […]

In the story of Flannery O’Connor “A good man is not easy to find” at first glance, you can see the story of a not very close-knit family that was unlucky enough to run into a maniac in the middle of a dirt road somewhere in Tennessee. From the very beginning of the story, we understand that something terrible is going to happen. “Chekhov’s gun” in the form of a message that a dangerous criminal has escaped from prison does not bode well for the whole family, which is going to a long journey. The whole story seems to slow down, leading us to that very tragic moment. The protagonist of the story is the grandmother of the family. Loving to manipulate the family and an extremely superficial lady. In the end, because of her love of manipulation, and doing as she wants, the whole family ends up in a fatal situation. If we consider this story from the point of view of an ancient Greek tragedy, then it has undeniable similarities. In the end, the protagonist must die, and through sufferings finds catharsis. According to the author, she uses violence to bring the hero back to reality, to catharsis. And the antagonist finally says: “If it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” So what is the story about? From the articles of this week we can see that there are different interpretations. One of them, as mentioned above, she finally receives her sight, clears herself before the death and grace descends on her and she touches the outcast, as the author says, “like the mustard-seed, will grow to be a great crow-filled tree in the Misfit’s heart, and will be enough of a pain to him there to turn him, into the prophet…”. […]

Years pass, and even millennia, many things change, but man and his essence remain almost unchanged. Ancient Greek tragedy, and Oedipus Rex in particular, touches on many timeless topics that are relevant now, and in any other period of time. I can define four general themes inherent in the human experience in the text: 1. Struggle against “fatum” and its inevitability  2. Rage as a sign of weakness 3. Family relations 4. Weakness of one person and the wisdom of the “demos” (democracy issues) In the ancient Greek worldview , two contradictory concepts coexisted – fate and struggle. On the one hand, the Greek faith in fate was unconditional – that which was destined to happen. Man is infinitely weak before the gods.Gods can cause suffering or help a person, but even they cannot change fate. Everything is predetermined! A tragic hero is born when a person, even knowing his terrible fate, decides to dare before fate, challenge the gods. The hero dies. And often fate finds him from the moment of the challenge, where the hero decides to change his fate. Both Oedipus and his father tried to fight and hide from fate, but in vain. Asking the reader, do we rule our own lives? Such a question haunts people and after two millennia:  “He suddenly jumps up and falls under a tram! You’re not going to tell me that he arranged to do that himself? Wouldn’t it be nearer the truth to say that someone quite different was directing his fate?” (Mikhail Bulgakov) asks the character of “Master and Margarita” in the 20th century.  In Oedipus’ behavior, we can see that, blinded by rage, he ceases to see and think. It makes a foolish boy out of a great king. And rage comes to him because of fear, […]

In my opinion, you assigned “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” to us as the first story of the course because to show how the author illustrates that the people who come into our lives, even in the most unusual circumstances can change our outlook on the world. The dead man is brought to the village and cared for by the women. At first the women are overtaken by his beauty and physique. Slowly the drowned man becomes Esteban. Esteban evolves from a nameless corpse to a loved member of the community in just a short time as the villagers make him a part of their family. Esteban’s greatness inspires the villagers to rise up and transform their village into something of greatness. The villagers a commit to, “paint their houses gay colors” and “break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs…” so the people would be, “suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas…” It is strange to think of a bloated dead man being able to inspire a small village and bring them together to transform their mundane lives into something extraordinary. However, the author teaches that every once in a while someone washes up into our lives and makes a difference. Most of the time it is unexpected and might not be what we had in mind, but is exactly what we need