Jiaxing Rong

I chose “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks to complete the steps of poetry appreciation. By reading it several times first, I noticed this poem mostly has isometric stanzas that consist of the same length lines, except the first stanzas. Also, each two ending words of the sentences rhyme, which I thought the pauses should be there but it in fact stops at the end of the line, “we”. Nonetheless, the poem gives me an impression that is easily memorized from the rhyme and simple words. Next step is starting the conversation, and obviously the conversation can’t begin as long as I don’t post my thread. However, one question I want to discuss here is what the speaker is suggesting in the poem. At first, I thought the speaker is a host in a game because from the first stanza “THE POOL PLAYERS”, the speaker is like reading this poem particularly to them. But the consistent word “we” made me realize the speaker is the peer of the audience. Based on the behaviors in the rest stanzas, the audience is seven rebellious teenagers including the speaker herself. “THE GOLDEN SHOVEL” seems they have the best equipment to dig their potentials up, but what they have been doing is the opposite, messing up their lives. The poem ends with “We Die soon”, returning to the title “We Real Cool” with a karma that all they have is only cool. 

When I thought of poetry about love, several words that came to mind immediately were romantic, admiring and divine. Indeed, in this week’s activities, Browning used these emotions in her poem “How Do I Love Thee” to show us how love can be enormous. Although the extent of love can’t be measured by certain things, she still managed to express her overwhelming feelings to her lover. At least I feel amazed by her description of words as if her love is the strongest and purest in the world. Nonetheless, after I read “My Mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun” Shakespeare showed me a new world of love poetry that doesn’t have to be so enthusiastic. In comparison, Shakespeare applied a different style which is realism into love poems, which I think most of the poets back in those days wouldn’t use. He illustrates a vivid, though ordinary, mistress through a lot of metaphors and similes in somehow degraded words. In this way, love can be more understandable and practical by the readers. These two poems make me realize that love can be various depending on which kind of love we prefer. 

For my research essay, I have been working on the character analysis of “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. My thesis statement is “The depiction of the main character demonstrates an empathetic change as he goes from being a naive child to a shameful liar who no longer believes in God”. I feel the secondary resources that best support my thesis is the biography either about Hughes’ early religious influence before “Salvation” in his childhood, which can support “Salvation” does cause a huge empathetic hurt to him, or about after “Salvation”, Hughes living as an atheist for the rest of his life. But it looks like there is no information about how Hughes is instilled the notion of the significant value of being a Christian by his aunt or the family. At least I found some critical essays about his firm position as a nonbeliever from his life experience related to religion and some of his poems.

The poem “The Wife” conveys the theme of the struggle between social norms and self willingness to be a wife in the 19th century. It starts with describing the early stage of a woman being a wife who has to “drop the playings of her life to take the honorable of women and of wife.” In “The Story of an Hour”, Louise is a perfect example that manages to do that. Her sister Josephine and Richards both believe she is a respectful wife who has already gotten rid of naivety and become totally mature. Louise does feel sad right after she hears the news of her husband’s death due to the honors she has today benefits from the marriage. However, when she goes back to the room and thinks alone, her imagination of a future living without a husband makes her feel excited and happy that never had before. By looking at the vibrant scene through the window, she realizes she sacrifices the whole world for the marriage, just as Emily Dickinson writes “Of first prospective, or the gold in using wore away.” in “The Wife”. She is ready to grasp the chance to enjoy the freedom for the rest of her life. Finally, however, the return of her husband destroys her last hope. At that time, there is no way for her to pursue freedom since her potential has been escaped under marriage. The cause of her death “lay unmentioned, as the sea develops pearl and weed.” Under the great pressure of social norms, Confirming death as an attribute to joy at least leaves her the last dignity.

The interior of the story is about the devastation of a whole family brought by the grandmother. Looking at the consequence, the cause of death for six family members is thought to be attributed to Misfit. Obviously, Misfit plays a villain role in the story who doesn’t have any good. But if we compare him with the grandmother, we will find out there are many similarities between them. They both lacked the love and care from the family. Misfit, in a extreme way, murders his father. The grandmother, in a different way, decides to tease them after she fails to persuade them to go to Tennessee. Even though she clearly knows the plantation is in Tennessee instead of Georgia, she lies to the kids, making them not have a good time. By doing so, not only she can let the family feel disappointment going to Florida, but also can make them regret not going to Tennessee. However, after they have a car accident, her plan is destroyed. Dramastically, even when she knows Misfit is killing his family, she just says he should pray but never tells him how to do that or how he can be a good man. Until the moment she is being killed, she suddenly shows the greatness of motherhood, which is considered a good characteristic. However, it is too late for her to be good. 

One timeless human experience I found is that we as humans can bravely challenge our miserable fate and try to convert it to a consequence that we desire. Although I and everyone can’t accept the fact that Oedipus married his mother Jocasta and had children with her, I admire him for spending his life trying to get away from the prophecy said by God. When he heard he would finally murder his father and marry his mother, he didn’t surrender to this so-called destiny and wait for the prediction happen. Instead he escapes his birthplace and starts a new life in a country where he becomes a king of it. That’s what made us as human beings unique in the world. Unlike the poultry whose destiny is being killed and eaten, the reason that we stand at the top of the food chain is that we have a stronger power to question our fate. We are competent to have a battle with the predicted future. However, for Oedipus, “its prophecies, ever living, flutter around his head”. In other words, our power is so small that we are not able to win over the big destiny. But I still believe that our failure in life can never use our destiny as an excuse. There are still many things we can control and change. For me, the behavior of Oedipus’s fighting against his fate prolongs the distance to reaching the tragic outcomes. Otherwise, this would have become an unremarkable story about a person who is conquered by a tragic fate. 

“Lately from snowy Parnassus clearly the voice flashed forth, bidding each Theban track him down, the unknown murderer. In the savage forests he lurks and in the caverns like the mountain bull. He is sad and lonely, his feet that carry him far from the navel of earth; but its prophecies, ever living, flutter around his head” (Grene, line 553-563). The passage depicts a imagery of current situation that the murderer of Laius still alive in ongoing impunity. It uses simile that compares the murderer and “the mountain bull” to emphasize that the ugly features of the murderer will be finally found out. His reckless temper and behavior will be blown out when someone challenges him even though he lurks in the forests. The power between evil and justice in the imagery shows an enormous difference. The justice is accomplished by “bidding each Theban” while the evil is “sad and lonely”. It constantly reminds people that evil always does not oppress the righteous. Even if the murderer get aways from “the navel of earth” and no relationship with anything else, “prophecies” set by God will chain him forever. It also implies that different prophecies might have been achieved in the following scenes.

“Araby” by James Joyce is a miserable story about a young boy coming to realize the distinction between his fantastic hope and reality in the world. At first the narrator does fall in love with Mangan’s sister. He imagines her day and night to the extent he has no idea where and how to express his love to her. One day he finally gets a chance to talk with her, and their first topic of conversion is going to a bazaar Araby. Unfortunately, the girl can’t go because “there would be a retreat that week in her convent”. Even though she can’t go and explore Araby with him together, the boy still behaves normally. At this time, his hope about the wonderful things in the world has expanded from a solely girl to a splendid bazaar. He is full of enthusiasm for Araby. Because it is a place that his admired girl recommended to him, he still wants to visit it even if on his own. However, he came to a place nothing special than a normal bazaar, which is even worse than he imagines from the indifferent treatment of the lady. He should have shared and described the beautiful scene to the girl but ends up disappointed about the reality that is far more than imagination from children. After reading the story, I am wondering about how the boy will describe Araby to the girl.

Sylvia was the child who had the strongest notion of money from the fact that when they were on the taxi, only she was “trying to figure out how to spend this money” that Miss Moore gave her as taxi fare. She wanted to save that money as much as possible even though her idea was not legitimate. Obviously, after they left the toy store, she was also the one who got the most angry about money being distributed to people so unfairly. It is unacceptable for her the first time in Miss Moore’s class learning a meaningful life lesson by knowing the distance between rich and poor. From $300 microscope to $1195 hand-crafted sailboat, she gradually realized she was actually at the very bottom of social economic hierarchy, to the extent where she started to doubt whether the toy store was real to them. When they finally grouped near the mailbox, unlike Sugar speaking out of the truth, she decided to carry out a more practical way to eliminate this inequality. Mercedes, on the other hand,  seemingly was the only one who learned the least from the trip. To her, it was common to visit toy stores such as FAO Schwarz. Different from other kids, she was not scared away by the outrageous toy price. Instead, the only thing she cared about was whether she liked that sailboat or not because “My father’d buy it for me if I wanted it.” The action of buying a luxury toy can be done in the moment to ask parents, which all other kids can never imagine in their childhood. The meaning of this trip for her was nothing more than knowing another toy shore where she can pick up one toy on her next birthday. However, I am curious about what […]

At first Langston was nothing more than a normal child who was curious about everything in the world, especially to something abstract like God. He genuinely anticipated the result of being saved from what his aunt told him seeing the light. As the time went by, looking at his peers saved, he started to get upset and was confused whether Jesus existed and came to save him. Then there were two factors from the outside that intensified his change, to become a person that he didn’t want to be. The people who should take the most responsibility for this change were the adults. The minister kept saying “Why don’t you come?” and his aunt knelt down and cried. They unknowingly gave pressure to Langston as if he had to be saved today. I believe the ending would be totally different if they said to Langston that’s fine and try another day. Another reason was by Westley. “God had not struck Westley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple.” Langston finally gave in and stood up, just in order to not waste time and make everyone happy. Children’s belief is naive and easy to establish that they believe all what the elders tell them is true about God. However, all the same time, once their faith was destroyed, they probably would have trauma that never comes back again. At the end, Langston cried hard at night, and I believed that’s when real salvation happened because he felt guilty for blasphemy. Unfortunately, he didn’t believe in Jesus anymore. 

I think you’ve assigned this interesting story because you want us to realize the importance of independent thinking. As we follow the plot of the story, we can detect there are generally three different categories of people having their own treatment for the drowned dead man. First group is the children who make him as their entertainment. “They have been playing with him all afternoon, burying him in the sand and digging him up again.”(Marquez 1) Obviously, we are not children anymore. We are supposed to have the ability to think and find out the cause of the man. When the drowned man is handed over to the adults, they diverge into two attitudes. Because finding no answers from outside, the men urgently wish the drowned man to disappear as soon as possible.(Marquez 5) On the contrary, the women have taken their time to imagine the drowned man’s life. Dead can’t tell, but the details can tell the truth. The women started to endow him a name, Esteban, to construct the image of how big his house is and his embarrassment as a guest for visiting other people’s houses.(Marquez 3,4) If we relate Esteban to our class, personally, he would be our readings and writings the professor has given us, and we, the readers and writers, are the villagers in this story. At the beginning of the class most of us might be the men who are incapable of retelling the stories and making the writings beautiful. As long as we would like to take our time in thinking patiently, we will gradually dig out the moral of stories and embellish it to our writings just as the women empower a new meaning of life to Esteban.