Renaissance Stage

Due to the practical limits of the Renaissance Stage, Shakespeare has to rely a lot on language to express certain actions and changes in the scene. One could see it more clearly at the end of each scene. In most cases, the scene ends with all the actors leaving the stage one by one. For example, "And so I take my leave, and thank you both." (II.I.422), then Baptista exits. "An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy." (II.I.427), then Gremio exits. "But in this case of wooing, A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning." (II.I.434), then Tranio exits. These quotes represent the last sentence the characters made before exiting the stage. Each character would say what they think about the event that has occurred in the scene or reveal their plans for the future. Most of the character would stay and make a closing statement.

Assigned Blog

In the beginning, it is a fact that Petruccio marry Kate to increase his wealth. However, what one may not consider is Petruccio morals toward having a wife. Petruccio believe that any wife would do him just fine for he could change that woman into anything his heart desire. In fact, Petruccio thinks of Kate as a challenge. It seems that Petruccio has made up his mind before the wedding on how to tame Kate. Petruccio leaves Kate with nothing but misery and hardship. He gives Kate no food, nor time to rest at night. “My falcon now is sharp and passing empty, And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged, For then she never looks upon her lure. To make her come and know her keeper’s call.” (IV.I.190-194). Petruccio’s reason for torturing Kate is to leave her with no other choice but to be obedient to him. This method is very similar as to tame a falcon. This method may seem cruel and unusual, but this is the only method Petruccio know of. One could not justify Petruccio as cruel and unusual for there is nothing Petruccio could possibly gain from his acts other than Kate’s obedience. Petruccio is simply doing his best of his knowledge to make his relationship with Kate works out. “Now, go thy ways, thou has tamed a curst shrow.” (V.II.205). At the end, to everyone’s surprise, Petruccio has successfully acquire Kate’s obedience and cooperation. Petruccio’s hard work and effort has pay off. It seems that all the suffering Kate has received is exactly what was needed. Petruccio made the right decision. He proves himself to be an excellence in analyzing a situation and resolving it.

Joycean Absences

James Joyce uses a creative way of absences in his "Dubliners". The absences in his story play a very important role. The absences in the narrative have created unexplained mystery. These mysteries are to be filled by the reader's imagination. Not necessary a word to replace the missing word, but an image which contains a thousand words. "Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself. . . ." (Joyce 18). When one read this, one could picture a priest in his sixty, sitting in his confession-box laughing by himself. The idea that will follow could be positive, neutral or negative. In the positive side, God has come to him at his dying hours which bring joy to him. Neutral side would be he is just there laughing by himself to his humorous memories throughout his life. Lastly, negative side would be that the demonic power has overcome him. The setting of the story plays a role on leading the reader to any of those three possible conclusions; but it is still up to the reader to decide which conclusion suits the best. The Absences in the story created a window of opportunity for the reader to come to his own conclusion on the details in which created a very interesting, mysterious story.

The second type of absence in the story is through the characters. The dead priest whom is the main subject of the story, was not introduce properly. One would not be able to tell the reason why he is dying, why his death is so significant, and what kind of person he was. The same goes to the narrator of the story. The reader does not have the information needed to conclude the narrator’s relation to the priest nor his significant in the story. By doing so, Joyce creates the sense of confusion and curiosity that the narrator feels through the story. Furthermore, it create the crave for more information in which is left to the reader’s imagination.

Eveline

At the end of the story “Eveline” by James Joyce, Eveline becomes paralyze in which disable her from going away with Frank. At that moment, Eveline realizes that she has not considered her decision thoroughly. A new life, a fresh start that Frank has to offer is a very tempting proposition. However, she realizes that she has not taken into account the price she has to pay for it. She realizes that she needs more time to decide. She simply could not go through with her epiphany. She knows that this is for the best, but her thought of leaving her current life for something else is too great of risk she is not ready for. The fears of making a mistake paralyze her on the spot. Without being able to make a decision, she unconsciously sealed her decision of not going. It seems that she is lacking with self confident towards her decisions.

"Escape! She must escape! He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live" (Joyce 49). She knows she has to escape from her current life, however it is something she can deal with later. The urgency of the decision making of going with Frank or not, has overwhelmed her mind and overtake her conscious. It is too hard for her to decide. Suddenly it seems alright to pass on the deal and find another way to escape from her life at her own phase. The pressure for a decision is a greater threat in which she unconsciously decided to escape from. Instead of escaping from her undesirable life, she escape from the need of a urgent decision.

Optional Blog

In the story "The Methamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, the main character Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find out that he has turned into a bug. Despite the extravagant event, Gregor quickly get over it and determined to get to work. Throughout the story, Gregor does not bother to wonder why he has turned into a bug. Gregor never tries to find a solution; it seems that he has accepted his faith. Gregor's family did experience a shock when they first found out that he has turned into a bug. However, beside his mother, the family soon enough accepts the fact that Gregor is forever a bug. Gregor becomes a burden.
Kafka does not want the reader’s sympathy toward Gregor. Rather, he would like the reader to learn from Gregor. One could see this throughout the story where neither Gregor nor his family accept the facts and live on. The end of the story would be the only part of the story where one would feel sympathy toward Gregor. When Gregor finally realizes how much he loves his family and how much he has became a burden for them he surrender his life and pass away. Despite that, the entire story does not show any sign of Kafka trying to apply a sympathy theme towards Gregor.

Citation

"The Metaporphosis" are commonly called fantasies. Unusual from the start, The Metamorphosis begins with Gregor Samsa's waking up transformed into a beetle. As the story progresses, Gregor appears to accept this fact fairly readily; he never stops to question how such a transformation could realistically occur. This lack of questioning seems very peculiar. One might expect a person who transformed into a beetle over night to inquire about the possibility of such an occurrence. Gregor's apparent lack of concern over his condition begs a query as to whether any physical change actually occurred. Although the story presents the mutation as fact, one might argue that it serves as a metaphor to illustrate the state of the Samsa household. Many critics who approach the story believe that Gregor's transformation is an extended metaphor, carried from abstract concept to concrete reality: trapped in a meaningless job and isolated from the human beings around him, Gregor is thought of as an insect by himself and by others, so he becomes one. In short, he becomes a vermin because of his work. In addition many critics have also offered psychoanalytical interpretations of The Metamorphosis, seeing in the work a dramatization of particularly modern neuroses. For its technical excellence, as well as for the nightmarish and fascinating nature of the metamorphosis itself, Kafka's story has elicited a vast amount of interest, and its various problematic features continue to challenge its readers.

Original Paragraph

The old man with the enormous wing were thought to be an angel. An angel is a wing creature sent from the heave to do God's will on the earth. In the story, however, the wing man rarely does direct miracles. And when he does, it does not turn out to be an effective on. Since he does have the capable of doing miracles, the wing man may be considered an angel. "the paralytic who didn't get to walk but almost won the lottery" (Marquez p.454). In that quotation, the angel may does a miracle, but not quite what the man needed the most. Furthermore, there is no direct proof that he is the one that causes it. He may have wings, and have the capability to make miracle; however, it is doubtful that he is sent by God to do His will.

I dislike this paragraph since it does not quite follow the format from the reader. This paragraph did not even make a solid argument nor a statement.I basically change the whole paragraph to create the one posted bellow.

Paragraph

The old man with the enormous wing was thought to be an angel in the story. An angel is a wing human-like creature sent from the heaven to do God’s will on earth. In the story, however, the wing man rarely does miracles. When he does miracle, it was not direct nor to be consider useful. “Besides, the few miracles attributed to the angel showed a certain mental disorder, like the blind man who didn’t recover his sight but grew three new teeth, or the paralytic who didn’t get to walk but almost won the lottery, and the leper whose sores sprouted sunflowers” (Marquez 454). The wing man does have the capability of doing miracles. However, these miracles are very unlikely to be God’s will. But if we take a look to the story as a whole, the wing man does bring good to the family in which he resides with. The wing man appearance has somehow lead to the child’s recovery from his sickness, and at the end the family is a lot better off after the appearance of this wing man. This wing man may not be an angel to most, even when he was considered as one. Nevertheless, this wing man appearance does save the family’s faith that he reside with. And even though he was not treated as one, he should be considered as an angel by this specific family. It is an ironic thing that people would travel across the country and pay to see this wing man they believed to be an “angel”, while the family this “angel” has saved from their misfortune treated him as a burden instead of a blessing.

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Name: Emily Grierson

Basic Information

Networks: None
Sex: Female
Hometown: Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi
Relation Status: It's complicated
Interested In: Men
Looking For: Leave me alone

Personal Information

Activities: Killing "rats"
Interests: China, Human properties after death.
Favorite Music: Classical




Wall:

Tax Collector: You are overdue on your taxes. Failure in paying will results in serious consequences. I do hope you taken this as a fair warning.

Emily: Kindly, talk to Colonel Sartoris. He will clear things up.

Tax Collector: Ma'am Colonel Sartoris have passed away nearly 10 years. You will have to pay these taxes sooner or later.

Emily: Later then.

Thesis

In the "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the author has created an abstruse image of the true existence of the angel like creature.

When I read We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks, it gives me an image of young students who play pool regularly and doing things that they please carelessly. I somehow have the feeling that the author want to tell the reader that there are things more in life then just having fun. A lot of people say otherwise. By reading other student's blog, it seems that many believe that the author wants to tell the reader that life is too short to take things too seriously. But, if we look into the whole poem aside from the last line, it does look like everything is well. The last line, however, bring a revolving ending to the sad fact of death. And if I look into the whole poem including the last line, I see an empty life. Yes, they did have fun skipping school, going out late to do as they please. But there isn't really any accomplishment, no goal, no ambition, no variation before the closing line "Die soon." There are a lot more things in life then daily fun. Life without an achievement, goal, purpose, love will be a boring life after a few months. If you don't believe me, try to do things without any plan during our 3 months-plus summer. Fill everyday with spontaneous activity, no work, no summer school, no goal. I, at least, got bored in a week.

Parody

Please don’t Be surprise

A watch was sold
the one
that your mom
has left you

you ate
my sweet and cold plums
it was
my breakfast

You should know
that I have bought some
more plums
for you too

For my parody of William Carlos Williams’s poem “This is Just to Say”; I chose to create a reply from whom Williams’s note was left for. I apply similar capitalization of the title by switching back and forward between each word. My poem has the same number of three stanzas in which each stanza has four lines. The syllabus form also mimics to what Williams’s poem has; which is (including the title): 5; 4,2,3,3; 2,5,2,3; 3,5,2,3. Also if you noticed the capitalization vertically at the beginning of each line in Williams’s poem, it would spell the word “TIF” which sounds very similar to “thieve”. If you would look at the capitalization of my poem, it mimics the location of Williams’s poem and would spell “PAY” which one could argue that it stands for “Pay Back”. The last stanza mimics Williams's poem by showing a slight feeling of guilt. But instead of saying he is sorry, he let Williams know that he did something nice for him by buying him more plums that he seems to enjoy so much. This is, his way of saying "I am sorry".

Week II Digging

In the poetry Digging by Seamus Heaney, the whole poem creates an image of a shovel, being used as a tool to dig. “Digging” in this poem does not only represent the act of creating a hole on the ground; it also represents progress, a job required to survive. More importantly, “Digging,” represent purpose.

In the beginning of the poem,

“Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.”

I believe that the author uses “gun” because it represents readiness, power; capable of accomplishing something that is in a far away distance. However, gun is useless if there is no intuition in using it. The next part of the poem describes how he envies his father and grandfather; digging, to make sure that the family would survive the day. And at the end, the last three lines say:

“Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.”

My conclusion of the meaning of the poem the first time reading it, is that in the beginning the author believes that he is much capable of doing anything; however, he is still confused on what he should do. After he sees his father and grandfather digging for the sake of the family, he finally decided to help out to dig for his own goal. Granted with the skill of words, he writes in the pursued of fulfilling his life’s goal and be valuable to his family.

I do understand that there are many poetic form that are widely used by poets. However, as one could find many famous poems that does not exactly follow the format of a proper poetic form; it has made me wonder on how strict and how loosely can one use these forms. That's it for now,... I'll add something later on.

Poetic Form

My Last Duchess by Ferrara

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
......

Prose

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive.
I call that piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands worked busily a day, and there she stands.
......

My Last Duchess uses an AA BB CC..... form. And to fulfill the use of the form, the sentences were split for the sake of the rhyme. In the short example above, two full sentences were split to accommodate an AA BB form. By doing so, not only it created a rhyme, but it also helps to put extra stress in certain area of the sentence. For example, the sentence “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive.” Would only inform the reader of how lively the painting is. However, by separating the sentence into two: “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,” and “Looking as if she were alive. I call” would imply a level of importance to that particular painting on the first section and inform the reader how she looks alive in the painting on the second. The poetic form has not only create a rhyme for the poem, it has also been used to apply a higher level of importance on certain parts of the sentence.

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