SHAMEZA ALLIHUSSAIN

  My ideas of poetry have broadened based on the different sonnets I’ve read. Poetry is shown to be an individual’s creative written response to a type of experience they had, whether its physical, emotional intellectual or just simply about something they like or enjoy such as sunflowers or sunsets.  I also now understand there are different types of poems based on the number of lines. Shakespeare, however, has a unique writing and language sometimes I can understand clear and sometimes I may have to re-read, but overall, it has so much meaning and can make you see the world differently. In Sonnet 130, “My mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun” by William Shakespeare is one I enjoyed reading. It is filled with sarcasm and his comparison is one of a kind. He compares parts of his lover’s body to beautiful objects, but her body was less beautiful than to the things he compared it to. For example, her breath isn’t at all like perfume, or her eyes aren’t as bright as the sun.  This poem describes female beauty and our expectations about the way a women should look in like the women in magazines.

The theme of the Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an hour,” because they both long for freedom. In the poem “The Wife,” She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife. In this stanza, the poet shares that the woman is getting married and entering her new life to be a wife She made changes, sacrifices, and dropped all her own dreams as a lady/girl to become a wife. Being a man’s wife was an honorable stand for women during the Victorian Era. If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away, In this stanza, it is a reflection of thoughts and opinions that cannot be shared. She doesn’t share the things she misses in this new life. The word “amplitude” refers to the drastic changes that the woman has experienced from being a young woman with a carefree life to a wife filled with a lot more responsibilities. She does not discuss what she is awed by, and she doesn’t mention her future expectations from her new life because it has slowly faded away with time. It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide. In this last stanza, the married woman keeps her happiness and sadness within herself and only she is aware of her own thoughts, feelings, and memories. Within the sea lies depth and only the married woman know how she feels.   As in “The Story of an hour,” Mrs. Mallard felt grief for her husband when she heard he was hit by a train, she transitioned into accepting […]

  In the essay about suspense in her story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by O’Connor, we know what the story is about on the surface. In its interior, I feel the story is about karma and dharma. Karma is the result based on a person’s actions throughout all of their lives, past and present. These actions are related to a person’s dharma, and whether or not they have fulfilled their duties of being a truly good human being. In this story it teaches us that nothing good comes from being selfish and if you are selfish, you or your loved ones may suffer your consequences. The grandmother manipulated her family to do what she wanted, and this was selfish of her. This led to the death of her and her family. This story describes there’s two different types of people, those who know they are bad people such as the Misfit and those who are bad people but portray to believe that they are good such like the grandmother.

Aristotle has written that “poetry is a higher form than history.” He qualifies that history is the story of a particular event that happens at a particular time to a particular person or group, while literature is the story of what is universal in the human experience. After reading Oedipus the king, its clear to see he couldn’t escape his own destiny. During this time, they believed that everyone’s fates were determined from birth and fates were unalterable. Oedipus is the protagonist and his fate, the antagonist. When Oedipus learned of his fate, he left Corinth after he heard what the prophecy directed to Polybus, the man he thought was his biological father. It was said that one day he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus eager to know the truth was unable to control what was given at birth for him. He believed he was powerful and when his father died, he set out with his own free will to find justice for King Laius, for the people of his land and his own personal reasons. He proclaimed death upon the man that killed King Laius. His fate was defined when he realized the man, he was searching for was himself.

Antistrophe First I call on you, Athene, deathless daughter of Zeus, and Artemis, Earth Upholder, 190 who sits in the midst of the market place in the throne which men call Fame, and Phoebus, the Far Shooter, three averters of Fate, come to us now, if ever before, when ruin rushed upon the state, you drove destruction’s flame away out of our land.   In this passage, line 188; Antistrophe is praying to three gods: he calls upon Athene, the immortal daughter of Zeus and Artemis, her sister Earth Upholder. Who keeps her famous throne in the market ring, asking the Gods to descend, for protection against death. In a time of grief and darkness, as in the old time you stepped up and saved the land. Come again and save us.

“Araby” by James Joyce is the reflection of a boy when he was younger, he was infatuated with the girl that lived across the street, Mangan’s sister.  His expectation was set high until reality kicked in. This young boy grew up in an environment where he wasn’t being paid enough attention in my opinion. His uncle was a drunk and he was filled with loneliness. His loneliness led him to be in lust with Mangan’s sister. The narrator describes his obsession with her, how “the girls name was like a summons to all his foolish blood and how his body was like a harp and her words and gestures are like fingers running upon wires.” With this obsession he started to believe he was in love and wanted her more and more. One day he went to her home, and she asked if he was going to attend the bazaar, named Araby. She expressed to him how much she wanted to go but couldn’t because she must attend an event for her covent. Upon him going to her doorstep his intentions were never to ask about the bazaar because he didn’t even know it existed or what it was. He only decided to go because she shared how much she really wanted to go, so he decided this was a way to get her. He told Mangan’s sister that he will go and bring her back a gift from it. His obsession with her became an obsession with getting her a gift, especially getting it from the bazaar. At this point his obsession made him forget about his schoolwork and he couldn’t wait to go to the bazaar to get her a gift. His uncle was supposed to give him money for the gift but on the day of the […]

After visiting the FAO Schwarz toy store, Mercedes loved it. She stated that she had a desk at home for doing her homework compared to other students. So, she felt at home in the FAO toy store. Mercedes is different from the others because she wants to be like the rich, the price tags meant nothing to her or what they represented about America. All she wants is to come back with her birthday money to buy herself a new toy. Miss Moore on the other hand is a college-educated woman who came to live in a poor neighborhood of New York. She took the children to the FAO store to expose them to various issues and way of life. She is teaching the children about the larger community and the problems that African Americans and poor people face in the world. When going to the FAO store she challenged the children to think about what they saw like the prices on the toys and to question the status quo. She shows the children that wealth and race are linked, and that white people and African American people are different. She discusses with the students how much things cost, what their parents earn and the unequal division of wealth. Both characters understand what things cost and how people are treated unequal. Mercedes knows that she wants to live the rich life, to be like the white people and Miss Moore is an educated woman that knows what this other life consists of.  Miss Moore is encouraging the children to question the inequality in the world around them.  

We know by the language and perspective of the narrator that “Salvation” is a coming-of-age story told by an adult looking back on a painful childhood experience, which results in an epiphany. In what ways is the young narrator different from the way he was at the beginning of the story? In the short story “Salvation,” it is told from a first-person point of view as if it is taking place the same moment. Hughes wants to show how a huge event in his childhood has changed his life forever. He wanted to show what and who changed his life. His experience of being saved only caused him to be disappointed in himself. He lied to the church, to Jesus, and to his aunt and this created a feeling of guilt. He pretended to be saved and that led him to lose his faith in Jesus because he felt nothing as the others felt saved. He is different now because he learns and shows us how the pressure an adult can have on a child, can cause so much damage to the one who is not aware of what is exactly going on. As a child Hughes only got up because he became impatient for waiting on Jesus to come to him and save him. He felt that since he was the last one left, the whole church was waiting on him to be saved. He lied also because he saw God did not punish Westley for lying. This affected him after when he realizes what he had done, and it resulted in his belief that Jesus does not exist because he did not help him. Hughes salvation was not what he was expecting to be and as an adult he realizes that it is all up to the person […]

In the beautiful and haunting story “The Most Handsome Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a profound change takes place in a remote village on a seaside cape after a beautiful, drowned body washes to shore. I think Professor Conway has assigned this as the first story of the course because its inspiring and motivating. As students we can learn to work together to become better for ourselves and for any task at hand individually. This story argues that a great person has the power to change themselves and to change others, to inspire those to be better and to make them want to be exceptional. It also shows the effect such a person can have on those who admires him or her and manifests as a desire for self-betterment. In the story, the Drowned Man, Esteban, symbolizes an overwhelming experience for the villagers. With his body being washed away to shore, it brought the villagers to gather, and they took on the responsibility to make changes as a team.