When I think of poetry, I think about the calming and rhythmic feel that it gives off. Although not all poetry can give a “relaxing” sensation to it, most of it is very storytelling in the few words and lines it is described in. Growing up, I loved writing poems whenever I had literature assignments. Sometimes making personal ones storytelling, replacing me with a different character or object or just having fun with rhyming and haikus. Once high school hit, however, poetry wasn’t such a main focus so my excitement towards poetry died out. The activities in Week 11 helped me realize how interesting and intriguing each piece of poetry actually is. The Italian Sonnet, “How Do I Love Thee” showed me that English can be imperfect yet still beautiful. Words can be bent to the ways of people’s thoughts and emotions, creating a doorway to how someone thinks, feels, and reacts.
Daniel Tapia
“The Wife” by Emily Dickinson relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “Story of An Hour” because Mrs. Mallard expresses joy in freedom from her husband dying. At first, Mrs. Mallard is washed over with emotions of grief. she later on realizes she will be living for herself in the coming years, repeating “Free! Body and soul free!”. In “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, the quote “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” shows how she or woman in general would drop their interests or what they were doing and take the role/stereotype as a woman and wife. Emily then ends with “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.”, which means how her “wife duties” continue to become the normality of every day living to her husband, restricted to enjoy the things she likes to do.
Timeless human experiences or behaviors that I found in my reading of Oedipus the King is the fear of not being in control. I think this is a big one because multiple times does the story goes on about fate, it is deeply connected within it. Fear of not being in control, the fear of higher beings being in control of what happens and what is your destiny, your “fate”, I think this is the timeless human behavior that is being interpreted from this reading. The reading of Oedipus the King’s characters shows that everyone faces their fate regardless of what they attempt to do, worsening it if continued to try and cheat fate to attempt to change it or mold it to their liking. Even Oedipus’s fate is already predetermined by the God’s, higher beings in the reading to commit. Throughout the reading, however, Oedipus as well attempts to change his fate, but his stubborn nature pushes him more towards his downfall.
CHORUS: This is a terrible sight for men to see! I never found a worse! 1490 Poor wretch, what madness came upon you! What evil spirit leaped upon your life to your ill-luck—a leap beyond man’s strength! Indeed I pity you, but I cannot look at you, though there’s much I want to ask 1495 and much to learn and much to see. I shudder at the sight of you. In this passage, the line “What evil spirit leaped upon your life to your ill-luck-a leap beyond man’s strength!” shows the literary device known as hyperbole. Following with “I shudder at the sight of you”, this line may explain the possible exasperation Chorus has. This passage explains how Chorus is feeling towards Oedipus, expressing irritation and maybe even a bit of fury towards him and his actions. To express this, Chorus begun with “Poor wretch, what madness came upon you!”. This may state that Oedipus is blindsighted by negative emotions, and Chorus clearly seeing this.
“Araby” by James Joyce is about a young boy and his wasted efforts towards his desires in expressing his love towards Mangan’s sister. He lets his imagination run wild, creating fantasies knowing reality was just one blink of an eye away. When they have one of their first conversations, they talk about the bazaar. Mangan’s sister states that she is unable to attend the bazaar Araby due to a retreat she had that week in her convent. Here, the narrator gets a very thoughtful idea; he decides to go to the bazaar and buy her something himself. Time after time again, he lets his uncle know that he wants to attend the bazaar, doing all that he possibly can to help him remember that he desires to go. The young boy is exhilarated about his plan. As the night approached, he waited for his uncle to arrive because he forgot to give him money. At last, he arrives and finally is able to give him money to go to the bazaar. Once he approached it, he was utterly disappointed. This was because it was already late, and a lot of the shops were already closed. Defeated, he gazed in anguish and anger.
In “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, Sylvia and Rosie Girafee both had two different point of views upon arriving the FAO Schawrz toy store. When everyone first arrived to the doors of the toy store with Miss Moore, Sylvia was nervous about entering, waiting for sugar to lead the way. Meanwhile, Rosie Girafee shoves her way in along with Mercedes and Big Butt. Contiuing the short story, the kids are admiring the toys, knowingly they are unable to afford them. Sylvia becomes jealous over the fact that Sugar runs a finger over the boat, wanting to even strike her or anyone in general. Meanwhile, Rosie Girafee is looking at the price tags on the different items in the shop and claiming white people are crazy due to the fact that the prices were so immensely high at the toy shop. Rosie left only skimming the surface of the real issue.
The young narrator in the story “Salvation” by Langston Hughes changed from the beginning of the story to the end. One way that this was the case is that Langston at the beginning decided to get up and lie that he had seen Jesus only because it was getting late. Later in the story, he faces guilt and penitence, even sobbing at the fact that he had lied to his aunt, that he had deceived everyone in the church. In the short story, he states that “But I was really crying because I couldn’t bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn’t seen Jesus, and that now I didn’t believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn’t come to help me”. This quote proves that Langston was deeply affected by the guilt and penitence he held from deceiving everyone.
