11/30/13
Over Thanksgiving break, there were many specials on tv having to do with President Kennedy's assassination. I watched some of these specials with my dad, and he convinced me to read the book Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly. Granted with all of the eating and sleeping, I have only had the chance to read the first 20 pages. But so far, I am quite interested and intrigued. Yes the conspiracy is extremely interesting and even the facts leading up to Kennedy's assassination are interesting, but what I found interesting is the way the book is written. Thanks to AP Lit, I found myself looking at the way the novel was written instead of just reading the book for information. It occurred to me that depending on the way the book is written a reader could be persuaded to believe that Kennedy was a great man or that he was an awful president. The way the book is written could also influence the reader to believe the conspiracy against Kennedy or believe that a single man was in charge of his assassination. In my opinion, O'Reilly does a pretty good job at stating the facts and keeping his opinion out of the novel so far. It dawned on me though that an author has the power to make a reader believe or feel the way he or she wants by using the right syntax and diction. A writer can make you hate a character by using negative diction or make you love a character by using positive diction. How else do we have heroes and enemies?! I do not read a lot of non fiction novels because to be honest I never found anything interesting about non fiction works. Why would I want to read about something in real life when I could escape and read about a fantasy works that I only wish existed. However, the more I think about it, I think non fiction works could be interesting. The author must have to focus on not sounding bias when writing non fiction novels. I know I would personally have a difficult time keeping my opinion out of certain real life situations. A question usually asked in English classes usually is "Can we trust the narrator and author?" "How do we know he or she is not biased?" After reading Frankenstein and Age of Innocence, it is common for authors to put aspects of their own life into their work. If an author hates 15 year old boys who play guitar, then it is likely for them to negatively describe a character like that in his or her novel which could in turn convince the reader that 15 year old boys who play guitar are awful human beings. How can we trust that not every author or narrator is biased? Is it possible for people to not be biased? I think that no matter how hard we try, people will always sound at least a little bit biased. The wording of every novel would have to be bland and perflectly worded as to not make people feel a certain way about a character or situation. Oh so complicated! Anyway it is time for me to either read some more or maybe go take a nap. We'll see which option wins!
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
11/17/13
My two favorite poems out of the William Blake packet are "The Divine Image" and "The Human Abstract." These are the two poems that my group was assigned to piece back together. (Shout out to Sven and I for figuring out the order of "The Human Abstract." Trust me, that was no easy task to complete). "The Divine Image" is from Songs of Innocence while "The Human Abstract" is from Songs of Experience. The titles themselves connect yet contrast at the same time. When I hear "divine image" I usually lift the image up to a holy or God-like image. "Human Abstract" makes me think of an imperfect human. I think of all different parts of a human put together, and it is most certainly not God-like. "The Divine Image" seems to discuss God himself, and His interaction with humans. The humans pray to God with emotions of "Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love" to say thank you. The poem seems to say that God is made of these emotions, so he made man of the same emotions. "Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress," all of these emotions make up a part of a man. God is the "human form divine." God is the divine image, and humans have parts of God in them. God must love the humans because they all have a part of God in them. They appear to be God in human form. "The Divine Image" discusses the positive results of the emotions of mercy, pity, peace and love, but "The Human Abstract" talks about the negative side of being made of such emotions. "Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody Poor." If people did not suffer, pity would not exist. People have to suffer, so that all aspects of human emotions can be felt. "The Catterpiller and Fly, Feed on the Mystery," These insects seem to feed on the mystery of human emotions. "The fruit of Deceit" relates to the Garden of Eden. The fruit is a lie, and it is "ruddy" and bloody. The men search to find the tree with fruit, insects, and Raven, but the tree grows in human brains. This is a tree of emotions that oppose one another. The Gods are searching to understand the humans' emotions and how they act. In this poem of experience, it seems that humans have taken the emotions of God and have manipulated them to fit their own evolution. When a human is innocent, they portray the pure emotions of God, however, when they have experience, they manipulate the pure emotions to fit their own progress and society.
I think that it was extremely wise and sneaky for John Gardner to put an expert of a Blake poem in the beginning of Grendel. It seems as if he was trying to warn us of Grendel's transformation. Grendel begins is life innocent of the world. He knows nothing out of his own little cave and his mother. Once Grendel explores the outside world and becomes connected with Hrothgar, he has gained experience. Grendel's own life journeys from innocence to experience. He ends up hating the men's society just as Blake did. Grendel thinks that the men's society is based on sacrifice (which is exactly what Blake thought). Sneaky Gardner, very very sneaky.
My two favorite poems out of the William Blake packet are "The Divine Image" and "The Human Abstract." These are the two poems that my group was assigned to piece back together. (Shout out to Sven and I for figuring out the order of "The Human Abstract." Trust me, that was no easy task to complete). "The Divine Image" is from Songs of Innocence while "The Human Abstract" is from Songs of Experience. The titles themselves connect yet contrast at the same time. When I hear "divine image" I usually lift the image up to a holy or God-like image. "Human Abstract" makes me think of an imperfect human. I think of all different parts of a human put together, and it is most certainly not God-like. "The Divine Image" seems to discuss God himself, and His interaction with humans. The humans pray to God with emotions of "Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love" to say thank you. The poem seems to say that God is made of these emotions, so he made man of the same emotions. "Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress," all of these emotions make up a part of a man. God is the "human form divine." God is the divine image, and humans have parts of God in them. God must love the humans because they all have a part of God in them. They appear to be God in human form. "The Divine Image" discusses the positive results of the emotions of mercy, pity, peace and love, but "The Human Abstract" talks about the negative side of being made of such emotions. "Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody Poor." If people did not suffer, pity would not exist. People have to suffer, so that all aspects of human emotions can be felt. "The Catterpiller and Fly, Feed on the Mystery," These insects seem to feed on the mystery of human emotions. "The fruit of Deceit" relates to the Garden of Eden. The fruit is a lie, and it is "ruddy" and bloody. The men search to find the tree with fruit, insects, and Raven, but the tree grows in human brains. This is a tree of emotions that oppose one another. The Gods are searching to understand the humans' emotions and how they act. In this poem of experience, it seems that humans have taken the emotions of God and have manipulated them to fit their own evolution. When a human is innocent, they portray the pure emotions of God, however, when they have experience, they manipulate the pure emotions to fit their own progress and society.
I think that it was extremely wise and sneaky for John Gardner to put an expert of a Blake poem in the beginning of Grendel. It seems as if he was trying to warn us of Grendel's transformation. Grendel begins is life innocent of the world. He knows nothing out of his own little cave and his mother. Once Grendel explores the outside world and becomes connected with Hrothgar, he has gained experience. Grendel's own life journeys from innocence to experience. He ends up hating the men's society just as Blake did. Grendel thinks that the men's society is based on sacrifice (which is exactly what Blake thought). Sneaky Gardner, very very sneaky.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
11/10/13
Female Author
All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world:
Favored (while suddenly the rains begin
Beyond the window) she lies on cushions curled
And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin.
Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses
Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms
Where polished higboys whisper creaking curses
And hothouse roses shed immortal blooms.
The garnets on her fingers twinkle quick
And blood reflects across the manuscript;
She muses on the odor, sweet and sick,
Of festering gardenias in a crypt,
And lost in subtle metaphor, retreats
From gray child faces crying in the streets.
-Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath strikes again. From the title itself, the reader can conclude that the poem is most likely going to be about a female. A female author literally wrote the poem (Sylvia Plath), and a female is the main focus of the poem. Words such as pink, feminine, rose-papered all relate to women. However, this poem highlights the more feminine qualities of a woman, but pins a grim and creepy twist to the stereotypical characteristics. The poem begins by saying that the woman plays chess with "bones of the world." Would anyone normally think of a female playing chess with bones of the world? Nope not normally. This could possibly mean that women actually run the world. They watch over everyone, and once they are gone, they use their bones to play games. Women take control and play games with the remains of the people they once knew. She lays on her posh cushion and takes and "nibbles" on a sin. Plath is highlighting the prim and proper qualities of a woman, but seems to be making fun of these qualities at the same time. This woman is proper, yet she nibbles on sin. In my opinion, he word "nibbles" in the sense to have a mocking tone. The woman knows that she is expected to be dainty and clean, yet she mocks these expectation by taking small bites of a sin. She commits these sins with a sly attitude. She knows it is unexpected for her to sin, yet she does it anyway. Oddly enough, I could not find the definition for a "higboy." Urban dictionary gave me a glorious description, "some weird word used by Sylvia Plath in her poem 'Female Author.'" Yes thank you for that fistful of knowledge. Safe to say, I am not sure what this word means. The poem continues describing feminine qualities of a room, but then takes an eerie twist when it says "whisper creaking curses." Could these curses be the curses a woman faces? This woman is forced in to a life full of cushions, and pink things, and rose-papered rooms. She is cursed with a prim and proper life, and the house she is in will not let her forget it. Garnets are defined as deep red, precious stones. There is an interesting connection between a red stone and the deep red color of blood. She seems mesmerized by the blood and by the smell of the blood. She seems more interested in the blood than the prim house around her. The odor is "sweet and sick" which is contradictory. The odor is similar to gardenias in a crypt. The flowers are described in a grim way by relating them to flowers given to dead people resting in a crypt. This woman seems to be related to death. She hides from the "gray child faces" outside her house. People who are dead are usually described as having a gray or white hue to their face. This woman is surrounded by prim and proper, feminine things, yet she is also surrounded by death. This poem could be mocking the prim and proper steryotypes that go along with being a woman by connecting them to qualities of death.
Female Author
All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world:
Favored (while suddenly the rains begin
Beyond the window) she lies on cushions curled
And nibbles an occasional bonbon of sin.
Prim, pink-breasted, feminine, she nurses
Chocolate fancies in rose-papered rooms
Where polished higboys whisper creaking curses
And hothouse roses shed immortal blooms.
The garnets on her fingers twinkle quick
And blood reflects across the manuscript;
She muses on the odor, sweet and sick,
Of festering gardenias in a crypt,
And lost in subtle metaphor, retreats
From gray child faces crying in the streets.
-Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath strikes again. From the title itself, the reader can conclude that the poem is most likely going to be about a female. A female author literally wrote the poem (Sylvia Plath), and a female is the main focus of the poem. Words such as pink, feminine, rose-papered all relate to women. However, this poem highlights the more feminine qualities of a woman, but pins a grim and creepy twist to the stereotypical characteristics. The poem begins by saying that the woman plays chess with "bones of the world." Would anyone normally think of a female playing chess with bones of the world? Nope not normally. This could possibly mean that women actually run the world. They watch over everyone, and once they are gone, they use their bones to play games. Women take control and play games with the remains of the people they once knew. She lays on her posh cushion and takes and "nibbles" on a sin. Plath is highlighting the prim and proper qualities of a woman, but seems to be making fun of these qualities at the same time. This woman is proper, yet she nibbles on sin. In my opinion, he word "nibbles" in the sense to have a mocking tone. The woman knows that she is expected to be dainty and clean, yet she mocks these expectation by taking small bites of a sin. She commits these sins with a sly attitude. She knows it is unexpected for her to sin, yet she does it anyway. Oddly enough, I could not find the definition for a "higboy." Urban dictionary gave me a glorious description, "some weird word used by Sylvia Plath in her poem 'Female Author.'" Yes thank you for that fistful of knowledge. Safe to say, I am not sure what this word means. The poem continues describing feminine qualities of a room, but then takes an eerie twist when it says "whisper creaking curses." Could these curses be the curses a woman faces? This woman is forced in to a life full of cushions, and pink things, and rose-papered rooms. She is cursed with a prim and proper life, and the house she is in will not let her forget it. Garnets are defined as deep red, precious stones. There is an interesting connection between a red stone and the deep red color of blood. She seems mesmerized by the blood and by the smell of the blood. She seems more interested in the blood than the prim house around her. The odor is "sweet and sick" which is contradictory. The odor is similar to gardenias in a crypt. The flowers are described in a grim way by relating them to flowers given to dead people resting in a crypt. This woman seems to be related to death. She hides from the "gray child faces" outside her house. People who are dead are usually described as having a gray or white hue to their face. This woman is surrounded by prim and proper, feminine things, yet she is also surrounded by death. This poem could be mocking the prim and proper steryotypes that go along with being a woman by connecting them to qualities of death.
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