My ideas on poetry mainly have not changed, I’m fascinated by romance and tradies in a poem. I did learn how to write a poem like an Italian sonnet and through the video that I watched on “Italian and Elizabethan Sonnets: Poetry Analysis,” I got a good understanding of the elements like an octave used in the lines of a poem and the poem should also be rhythmic and frequently metaphorical. The poem like “sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare, this one for me was personally a little difficult but I then understood that the beauty of someone he loved was compared to a summer day. Poems like the mood and tone set the attention to the reader’s eye like mine (when romance is involved). The video poetry lessons were it was helpful, I don’t know much about how to write a poem I have an understanding of what a poem is or isn’t when writing a poem.
Sheila
The theme of Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of An Hour” because Mrs. Mallard lived her life for him as her wife and after his passing there was grievance but also a feeling of freedom living her life not revolved around her husband. Dickinson says; “She rose to his requirement, dropped. The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” Dickinson’s description of what women would do for a man was exactly what Mrs. Mallard was to her husband, her life was her husband, that’s why after finding out he passed away there was a scene of freedom that she felt. After having felt freed, Dickinson states “If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away.” Dickinson describes women missing their old self and this relates to Mrs. Mallard. She beggings to reminisce about her past self and missed it. Lastly, in the poem, Dickinson says ” it lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed” meaning that it never gets brought up to a woman’s husband and it’s left unsaid. Mrs. Mallard went through the same thing with not letting her husband know and it was left unsaid till she also forget about herself till he passed away and her life was hers again.
In the story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor the “interior” the author speaks of means that the character in her story, the grandmother whos a religious person but also very much racist who constantly passes judgment on others and an annoying character overall, and also the Misfit who’s a criminal and an ignorant man who believed the world punished him from doing what they (society) thought was wrong because he didn’t believe there was a right or wrong thing to do. Although these characters are described differently they’re both similar in a way because both of these characters at the end try to find mercy and not for one other but for themselves, The grandmother before dying had a self-reflection of her evil actions and so did the Misfit after killing the grandmother, he also came to a self-reflection that the grandmother was actually a good person and not everyone was unkind, The “interior” meaning was that anyone can change and these two characters in the story were a good example of two horrible characters have a self-reflection toward the end of the story.
In the reading of “Oedipus the King”, timeless human experiences or behaviors I found was since birth Oedipus didn’t know about his real parents and he ended up killing his father and marrying his mother (Jocasta) who he didn’t know about it till it was revealed after. This led to Oedipus accusing Creon of Laius’s death and planning his exile or death, to Jocasta killing herself after finding out the truth that she’s Oedipus mother and wife on her own, and lastly, Oedipus dying from all the misfortune he’s had and from my take of the Chorus saying “he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.” (1728). Oedipus’s real father Laius and Jocasta sent their kid to be killed after a prophet told them that their baby will kill him and marry his mother, even after trying to change destiny, it still happening, proceeding to show that you can’t always force a change on an incident because it’ll end up happening again. Changing the outcome also caused plenty of people to get hurt in the process.
In the reading of Oedipus the king, translated by David Grene, the passage that I selected is “I know that what the Lord Teiresias sees, is most often what the Lord Apollo sees. If you should inquire of this from him you might find out most clearly.” (304-307). According to the chorus, Teiresias is on the level of the god of Apollo in relying on the truth, After sending his brother in law Creon to speak to the god Apollo to stop the plague, Apollo’s request was to find the killer of King Laius in order to stop the plague, the chorus then suggests Teiresias, and after Oedipus persistence, Teiresias revealed that it was Oedipus that he killed the King. The chorus suggesting Teiresias to Oedipus created a shock factor in the story and revelation where King Oedipus was the “bad guy” in the story that caused to plague, which Oedipus denied.
The story “Araby” by James Joyce is about a young man who is obsessed and desperate with his neighbor, he wouldn’t speak to the young girl but when he had the chance to talk to her, he was timed, the young girl approached him and sparked a conversation about Araby bazaar and that wasn’t able to go because of a trip that week but would’ve loved to visit, the boy tells her that if he goes he will “get her something” (11) and this is where his desperation came out, it was like if he needed to get her something from the bazaar, and after going through some trouble to get there, he managed to get there and unfourtanly after getting there late, he looks at a few vases and from the workers tone of voice in how he was approached asking if he wanted to buy something, the young boy replies “no thank you” (34) and evenually walks away disappoined from the lack of money he had, not being able to get her something, and the visit to bazaar.
These two characters Sylvia and Sugar from “The Lesson” stood out the most to me because of their differences. When Miss Moore asked the kids what did they learn today, both of their attitudes were different after the visit to the FAO Schwarz toy store. Sugar actually learned something like equality, when she says ” equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough” (6). Sugar for me is saying that there’s no equality, that the system is broken and needs fixing to become a fair system, and Sylvia didn’t nor did she want to learn and for that Sylvia is the government for me, they hear people like Sugar and find it annoying, heard it and won’t make a change. This was just a toy store visit but you can tell that Miss Moore was trying to teach the kids more about how money is being spent when it could feed families and Sugar was one of the kids that learned and a realization of rich versus poor.
From the beginning of the story, Langston Hughes a young boy believed that he would see “the light” what his aunt described as “being saved” and as each of the kids goes up to the altar, he’s still waiting to see Jesus, until he was the only one left. The later it got the more anxious and devastated he got because he didn’t want to disappoint his aunt but he also wanted to be “saved”. After waiting and waiting, Hughes started thinking if nothing happened to Wesley and he didn’t see anything but walked up to the Altar anyways should he do the same? ultimately after a long wait of not seeing Jesus, he decided to give up and walk to the Altar, and say he believed. Hughes then goes on to question the existence of Jesus because he wasn’t saved by him. From the beginning, he believed in Jesus but towards the end of the story, he loses belief.
