As far as what I have learned from poetry, I will have to admit first and foremost that I’m am one of those poeple making the assumption that all poetry rhymes. That was an interesting turn up events that I learned from the poetry lession presentation video. After reading William Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 “My Mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun”, I came to learn that you can do more than just talk about how much you love something. That you can in intricate ways speak on what is bothering you such as when Shakespeare said, “her breath reeks” or “black wires grow on her head”. Not only speaking on what he doesn’t like but also in a round about way saying that dispite all of thing listed in that poem about even though the author’s mistress dull and dim, he still love her so much. Like having an ugly item but you’re happy because it is yours, not because of how pretty it is.
Rego Nurse
The piece of literature I will be writing about for my research essay is “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. My thesis statement is as follows: “The underlying irony of this story is in how in trying to be “saved”, he has actually become a sinner in the process.” I will be using “Critical Insights: Langston Hughes” found in the BMCC database published by Miller. (2013). Langston Hughes. Salem Press. In it, there are many points of view on Hughes and his effect on the African American people as a whole. From lynching to faith, and even his influence on music (the Blue’s specifically). With the many insights on how he influenced the people and how they influenced him. The chapters in this book will be sure to give me a better understanding of what kind of person Hughes came to be after being that 12-year-old boy in church looking to be saved.
What is clear from both “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is women of the 1800’s lived on the whims of their husbands. One could say that they weren’t truly alive when their husbands were around. They were merely extensions of their husbands not a whole person unto themselves. When Dickinson says “She rose to his requirement..” or “the gold in using wore away” speaks to all that a wife has to do for her husband and the standards that she has to keep for him slowly wearing away at her as a person until there is not much left of herself. Which makes the wife in Chopin’s story so happy in the way that she describes all of what she is experiencing right after hearing of her husband’s demise. Whether speaking of the tops of trees “springing to life” or the “patches of blue sky” it was as if the world around her was coming to life for the first time. Though no other line in Chopin’s story rings closer to how her main character felt than when she kept whispering “Free! Body and soul free!”.
The interior of O’Conner’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” is truly terrifying. Like in most stories foreshadowing can be seen when the grandmother warns her son about going to Florida because of the Misfit, though in suspenseful horror fashion he ignores her and they go there anyway. What can be taken away from this story is a lesson of what can happen when a person is bullheaded and thinks that they are correct. Examples are the grandmother being embarrassed that she was wrong and her son for not listening in the first place regardless of the chances of actually passing the Misfit by. I feel akin to Stephan Gresham’s point made in his essay about the tale that this story is much more frightening in the imagination of the reader regarding what is not shown than what actually is. This is a story that shows anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
When I think of the story of “Oedipus the King”, by Aristotle is clear to me that there is a true sense of justice against all odds being stacked against him. A person trying to outrun or avoid what they think is an ill fate is timeless. Whether it be a child being told what they will do for a living or who they will marry. Those that have fled their country of birth to another for the freedom of escaping their fate if they stayed. Another could be someone that thought they were doing the right thing like the shepherd that took Oedipus away only to find out they did a terrible wrong in doing so. Many a person has tried to do what they thought was right only to have it bite them back at the end of things. Lastly just like any good parent regardless of the bad things that they have done or that have happened to them, the only thing Oedipus cared about at the end was not himself but for his children.
Araby by James Joyce comes off as speaking about several themes throughout the narrative. At first I thought it was about a child with. crush on a woman in his neighborhood. Then later on I thought the narrator was actually a dog that was in love with another neighboring dog. Being liberated and hearing the cries of his companions standing in for a human in the house letting him leave the room and the other dogs playing in the street respectfully. Finally at the end it left me with the feeling that the narrator died at the end, the carriage taking him to the after life and the two pennies he had representing the coins left on the closed eyelids of the deceased. The “brown figure cast by my imagination” comes accross as a version of death being seen in the darkness. Along with the twists and turns this story was a confusing one for myself I will admit.
Sylvia and Sugar are the two characters in this story that stand out to me the most. They serve as two sides of the same coin. Sylvia even after the field trip to F.A.O. Schwartz is unfazed by the experience. Sugar on the other hand seems as if she has seen more of the world now and wants some semblance of independence. At the very least she won’t stand for Sylvia attempting to silence her opinions or thoughts about things that they don’t agree on. Though yes at first they both would rather be at the pool instead of wearing starchy clothing and being forced to behave in a certain manner on 5th avenue but as the story progresses things slightly change. While they both think deeply about this new world they were just shown. Sylvia rejects it knowing that she will most likely never make enough to afford any of those toys and Sugar comes off as thinking about what the future could hold. Only shown in how Sugar refused to be shut down by Sylvia, that in itself being something new shows the change in Sugar from her experiences of the day.
