Ralph Ellison’s the Invisible Man very powerful story and paints us an incredible picture. His words are very deep and I can see the imagery through out. When I read the prologue in the beginning I was left very confused and did not understand at all what the reading was going to be about. After reading the chapter I can see that it’s the life of the main character later on.
The character in the prologue is so much different then the young men in the first chapter. It sure does make me wonder what happened in his life that made him change so much. He is so bitter here depressed and calls himself invisible. From what I understood he does not like people and is not social at all. He lives in an abandoned basement in a large building. On page 2299 he calls his place a “hole” but yet he defends it and doesn’t want anyone to think that it is a dumb. “There are cold holes and warm holes. Mine is a warm hole.” Makes me wonder why he cares what people think about his “hole” if he claims to be the invisible man. Would you think that when you are THE invisible man you wouldn’t care what others said about your home or place where you choose to live. Also what struck me in this section is the part where he beats up the man in the dark alley who he walked into. He blames the old man and says everything is his fault. And even after he found out he was blind he didn’t seem to care he kept on laughing and even when he saw the newspaper in the morning he continued to blame the blind man. After I had read the chapter I kind of wondered if he was so bitter because of what happened to him when he was invited to give the speech and ended up fighting with the other boys. I think he was so bitter from that event that he never moved passed it and didn’t forgive the white men for all the torture.
The part in the chapter when he was describing their fight it almost made me sick to my stomach. I can just picture it or see it like some movie. The white men drinking and smoking and laughing at the black boys like they were wild animals. They used them for their entertainment and amusement. Unbelievable. The story is fictional; I’m a sure thing like these happened all the time during the slavery years.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Robert Hayden "Those Winter Sundays"
Such a short poem but yet so much can be interpreted from it. When I first read it, I automatically thought of myself. Why you might ask? Well once again I will go back to my childhood in Ukraine. My family lived in a country where winters were very cold. All I can do is remember my mom waking up early to heat the house. Everyday, on top of everything else she did.
At first I had thought that the speaker or the voice of the poem is a young child. But as I read the poem once more I realized that it is clearly a grown up speaking. When you are a kid you don’t really understand why parents do the things they do. You just think they have to do it. I can almost see the regret in his eyes; maybe he is realizing that he wasn't the nicest kid in the world. Where do I get this idea you might ask? Well lets look at the last two lines of the poem. “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” It is like the speaker is regretting some of the choices that he has made when he was young. Maybe he didn’t express the feelings of appreciation towards his father? But again as I read the poem I notice the line where he says: “fearing the chronic angers of the house.” Why would he say that? Unless he was angry at his father for something that has happened during their lives. So much to take in, and all up for grabs…
Also this poem is full of imagery. Almost every line you can picture yourself there. At least I can. The words are so descriptive and paint a great picture. I love it when a poem does this. I’m not a very big fan of poems where it leaves you hanging all the time. A poem, like a great book, should take the reader away from reality and make us put ourselves into their shoes. Hayden does a great job doing this with this poem.
At first I had thought that the speaker or the voice of the poem is a young child. But as I read the poem once more I realized that it is clearly a grown up speaking. When you are a kid you don’t really understand why parents do the things they do. You just think they have to do it. I can almost see the regret in his eyes; maybe he is realizing that he wasn't the nicest kid in the world. Where do I get this idea you might ask? Well lets look at the last two lines of the poem. “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” It is like the speaker is regretting some of the choices that he has made when he was young. Maybe he didn’t express the feelings of appreciation towards his father? But again as I read the poem I notice the line where he says: “fearing the chronic angers of the house.” Why would he say that? Unless he was angry at his father for something that has happened during their lives. So much to take in, and all up for grabs…
Also this poem is full of imagery. Almost every line you can picture yourself there. At least I can. The words are so descriptive and paint a great picture. I love it when a poem does this. I’m not a very big fan of poems where it leaves you hanging all the time. A poem, like a great book, should take the reader away from reality and make us put ourselves into their shoes. Hayden does a great job doing this with this poem.
Final Essay Pitch
This was a no brainer to me, ever since I can remember I have always loved to read magazine... I read anything from National Geographic to Cosmo. So for my final essay I will be writing a letter to the editor. I'm not sure which one of the writers I will be writing about but I will figure it out. So obviously I will be going with "the Literary Champion". We'll see what I can make of it.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Good Country People...
Trickster! The first word that popped into my head when I finished reading this story. Flannery O’Connor has done such an amazing job portraying the trickster figure in the "Good Country People" that it was kind of fascinating to read about it and kept me wanting to read more.
In the beginning of the story O'Connor keeps her focus on the girl even though she doesn't speak much her mother keeps talking about her a lot. So that made me wonder why is this character so important. Also an interesting thought that popped into my head is that Hulga is as big of a trickster as the Bible salesman. Why I say this? Well when they meet by the gate she has already started plotting on how she could trick him and seduce him. On page 2538 when she goes back to her room and starts imagining how she is going to seduce him. But before that on that same page when the salesman asked her old she was and she replied seventeen. Clearly a lie. She was hoping to trick him. The story takes a turn around and he ends up tricking her.
Kind of funny in a way here we have this character who thinks she is tricking everyone and made people believe that she is really though. And on page 2540 we see this man who is able to destroy that strength in a few words. When they are in a barn he tells her he loved her the moment he saw her. That is how is gains his trust and keeps telling her to tell him that she loves him. At first she really hesitant and tries to avoid the answer. She tells him: “We are all damned,” “but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there’s nothing to see. It’s kind of a salvation.” We can see here that she is trying to change the subject hoping he will forget what he wants to know but he doesn’t forget and quickly replies “Okay” to that statement and asks one more time “but do you love me or don’tcher?” That is how he gets to her and finally she gives in and says yes, in a sense.
He can still tell that she is hesitant and wants her to prove it. That to me was like a big eye open you almost want to yell at her (as if she can here) and tell her to run away because he is going to hurt you! One thing that she has never trusted anyone with she trusted a complete stranger and gives him her leg. He takes it and runs away. She is left sitting there at the barn. And her mom sees him walking over the hill and says what a great carefree young man he is. Little does she know that he is con artist that just tricked her daughter. So easy to misread people and we often do so.
In the beginning of the story O'Connor keeps her focus on the girl even though she doesn't speak much her mother keeps talking about her a lot. So that made me wonder why is this character so important. Also an interesting thought that popped into my head is that Hulga is as big of a trickster as the Bible salesman. Why I say this? Well when they meet by the gate she has already started plotting on how she could trick him and seduce him. On page 2538 when she goes back to her room and starts imagining how she is going to seduce him. But before that on that same page when the salesman asked her old she was and she replied seventeen. Clearly a lie. She was hoping to trick him. The story takes a turn around and he ends up tricking her.
Kind of funny in a way here we have this character who thinks she is tricking everyone and made people believe that she is really though. And on page 2540 we see this man who is able to destroy that strength in a few words. When they are in a barn he tells her he loved her the moment he saw her. That is how is gains his trust and keeps telling her to tell him that she loves him. At first she really hesitant and tries to avoid the answer. She tells him: “We are all damned,” “but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there’s nothing to see. It’s kind of a salvation.” We can see here that she is trying to change the subject hoping he will forget what he wants to know but he doesn’t forget and quickly replies “Okay” to that statement and asks one more time “but do you love me or don’tcher?” That is how he gets to her and finally she gives in and says yes, in a sense.
He can still tell that she is hesitant and wants her to prove it. That to me was like a big eye open you almost want to yell at her (as if she can here) and tell her to run away because he is going to hurt you! One thing that she has never trusted anyone with she trusted a complete stranger and gives him her leg. He takes it and runs away. She is left sitting there at the barn. And her mom sees him walking over the hill and says what a great carefree young man he is. Little does she know that he is con artist that just tricked her daughter. So easy to misread people and we often do so.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
T.S. Eliot
When I began reading T.S. Eliot it certainly made me think more then I have been doing in the past with the poems. This poem was written in 1922 after WWI and references to WWI quite a bit. The poem, to me, is very confusing and I kept reading over and over again to even make sense of some sections.
The Waste Land is very dark, depressing, has information overload but yet very historic. The deeper I dug into the poem the more I began to make sense of it. The first section of the poem is titled the "The Burial of the Dead", sounds great? NOT. I thought to myself why would I want to read something that is titled that way. The title threw me off and the poem is nothing what you expect it to be. Eliot is talking about more then just literarily burying the dead. He is talking about the seasons dying. Summer is great but then fall comes around and everything dies. Also in the first section he says, "I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter." Made me think of how the birds migrate south in the winter for the warm weather. Maybe the world which he is living in "dies" so to speak because all of this.
This poem speaks about many different things, and has a lot of different speakers through out. For example (I'll just stick with "The Burial of the Dead") Section 1 has four subsections and each section seems to have a different speaker. How do I know this? Well in the first one he plain out tells us its Marie, in the other ones he makes references and sort of points out who the main speaker is. Like the ghost in the fourth subsection.
The poem it self through is very depressing. He seems unhappy. WWI probably had a great influence on that. At least I would say so. Through out the war 15 million people were killed. Good reason to be upset I’d say. I think he felt very betrayed, nothing was the same and a lot of people had to start over with their lives. Kind of interesting how he named the poem “The Waste Land” like everything is just wasted.
Very confusing and a hard poem to read but with a lot of help from the footnotes and some research online I have began to sort of understand it. Although I don’t think I will be reading it for fun any time soon.
The Waste Land is very dark, depressing, has information overload but yet very historic. The deeper I dug into the poem the more I began to make sense of it. The first section of the poem is titled the "The Burial of the Dead", sounds great? NOT. I thought to myself why would I want to read something that is titled that way. The title threw me off and the poem is nothing what you expect it to be. Eliot is talking about more then just literarily burying the dead. He is talking about the seasons dying. Summer is great but then fall comes around and everything dies. Also in the first section he says, "I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter." Made me think of how the birds migrate south in the winter for the warm weather. Maybe the world which he is living in "dies" so to speak because all of this.
This poem speaks about many different things, and has a lot of different speakers through out. For example (I'll just stick with "The Burial of the Dead") Section 1 has four subsections and each section seems to have a different speaker. How do I know this? Well in the first one he plain out tells us its Marie, in the other ones he makes references and sort of points out who the main speaker is. Like the ghost in the fourth subsection.
The poem it self through is very depressing. He seems unhappy. WWI probably had a great influence on that. At least I would say so. Through out the war 15 million people were killed. Good reason to be upset I’d say. I think he felt very betrayed, nothing was the same and a lot of people had to start over with their lives. Kind of interesting how he named the poem “The Waste Land” like everything is just wasted.
Very confusing and a hard poem to read but with a lot of help from the footnotes and some research online I have began to sort of understand it. Although I don’t think I will be reading it for fun any time soon.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Chandler "Red Wind"
Chandler’s “Red Wind” had left me in awe. I usually do not like to read mystery/crime or suspense stories but this one I could not put the book down. It kept me wanting to read more and more to see what was going to happen next. And as a reader that is what I expect from a great novel or a story. What a great change of reading from our previous reading assignments it was actually entertaining.
Red Wind, like I said is a story about a detective who witnessed a shooting and now is a liability to the murderer. Chandler goes into great detail and I could picture clearly what he is saying. I actually could visualize in my head the street, the bar, the cars, the people you name it. As an author you want to do that to keep your reader interested through out the story. As a writer this is a great thought to always keep in mind. Imagery is one of the most important things in a short story or a book. At least I think so.
I have read so many books or short stories where the start is great and when you get to the middle or few pages into it you lose sense of what the author is trying to say. You basically get bored and don’t want to read anymore.
I would have to say that my favorite part of this story is when the kid in the bar says “I don’t like drunks in the first place and in the second place I don’t like them getting drunk in here, and in the third place I don’t like them in the first place.” So simple yet so catchy. Something I could easily see in a movie or a TV show.
It think it was very clever the way Dalmas captured the killer. He was calm and didn’t panic. Dalmas was a very smart man who as a detective have probably been dealing with people like that before.
Great story and I would recommend to everyone.
Red Wind, like I said is a story about a detective who witnessed a shooting and now is a liability to the murderer. Chandler goes into great detail and I could picture clearly what he is saying. I actually could visualize in my head the street, the bar, the cars, the people you name it. As an author you want to do that to keep your reader interested through out the story. As a writer this is a great thought to always keep in mind. Imagery is one of the most important things in a short story or a book. At least I think so.
I have read so many books or short stories where the start is great and when you get to the middle or few pages into it you lose sense of what the author is trying to say. You basically get bored and don’t want to read anymore.
I would have to say that my favorite part of this story is when the kid in the bar says “I don’t like drunks in the first place and in the second place I don’t like them getting drunk in here, and in the third place I don’t like them in the first place.” So simple yet so catchy. Something I could easily see in a movie or a TV show.
It think it was very clever the way Dalmas captured the killer. He was calm and didn’t panic. Dalmas was a very smart man who as a detective have probably been dealing with people like that before.
Great story and I would recommend to everyone.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Feminist Manifesto
While reading this piece I came to realize that there were a lot more going in back in the day then just slavery and racism. Mina Loy's Feminist Manifesto made me see how hard women had it.
"Cease to place your confidence in economic legislation, vice-crusades & uniform education-you are glossing over Reality." I'm really glad that she had a foot note here because I did not understand what she was talking about. It was very hard for a woman to be her own individual because of the law. She could not own land, did not have access to higher education. Women were programmed to be depended on the man. First it was their father, then they were married off and the husband took of them. I'm very proud of her for saying and writing all of this. It is too bad it was not published earlier but again considering the circumstances in the early 19th hundreds she would have gotten in trouble for writing this.
Another point that strikes me in the text when she says: “Leave off looking to men to find out what you are not – seek within yourselves to find out what you are”. This to me is really a great quote. Many women should read it now and realized that they need to figure out who and what they are without a man. Loy seems to be like a very educated and a smart woman. Also I could tell that she is speaking from experience. The words that are emphasized in bold, large letters are telling us something. She obviously wants us to pay attention to them.
Another passage that stood out to me was on page 1504 “… would the unconditional surgical destruction of her virginity through-out the female population at puberty.” Kind of a disturbing thing to me but maybe during the time this was written it would actually work. Maybe man wouldn’t be possessive as much.
I chose to write about this well because first of all it stood out to me and also to say the least how very happy I am that I do not have to live by the rules that women had to live by in the early days. I’m very independent and could not imagine being dependent on a man right now. I love them but I want to live my own life and could not stand to being told what to do. I’m happy that she realized that finding your self does not need to be looked for in a man or anyone else for that matter.
"Cease to place your confidence in economic legislation, vice-crusades & uniform education-you are glossing over Reality." I'm really glad that she had a foot note here because I did not understand what she was talking about. It was very hard for a woman to be her own individual because of the law. She could not own land, did not have access to higher education. Women were programmed to be depended on the man. First it was their father, then they were married off and the husband took of them. I'm very proud of her for saying and writing all of this. It is too bad it was not published earlier but again considering the circumstances in the early 19th hundreds she would have gotten in trouble for writing this.
Another point that strikes me in the text when she says: “Leave off looking to men to find out what you are not – seek within yourselves to find out what you are”. This to me is really a great quote. Many women should read it now and realized that they need to figure out who and what they are without a man. Loy seems to be like a very educated and a smart woman. Also I could tell that she is speaking from experience. The words that are emphasized in bold, large letters are telling us something. She obviously wants us to pay attention to them.
Another passage that stood out to me was on page 1504 “… would the unconditional surgical destruction of her virginity through-out the female population at puberty.” Kind of a disturbing thing to me but maybe during the time this was written it would actually work. Maybe man wouldn’t be possessive as much.
I chose to write about this well because first of all it stood out to me and also to say the least how very happy I am that I do not have to live by the rules that women had to live by in the early days. I’m very independent and could not imagine being dependent on a man right now. I love them but I want to live my own life and could not stand to being told what to do. I’m happy that she realized that finding your self does not need to be looked for in a man or anyone else for that matter.
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