Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Miss Emily Facebook

Basic Information:

networks: Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi

sex: female

relationship status: married

interested in: men

lookin for: friendship



Personal Information:

activites: china painting, not paying taxes, spending time with my cousins

interests: I like to stay at home, spending time with my cousins, and use poisons for people who displease me.

favirote music: opera and classical

favorite books: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison


About me:

I like to stay home alot. I enjoy painting china in my house. I lost my father when I was younger and that was very hard on me even till this day. Tax collectors are my enemy. And I had a fiance until he left me, which in the end turned out worst for him then it did for me....

friend: Hey emily how are you? I never see you are always at home. By the way how is Homer I havent seen him for a while. Where did he disapear to?

Miss Emily: I am doing fine...and as for Homer. Well you wont be seeing much of him anymore.

friend: Oh why is that? Is he ok?

Miss Emily: ........

As for the rest of Miss Emily's facebook she would only have one picture in her album and very few friends, since she never is out of her house. I put Married on her relationship status because she wants so badly for Homer to commit to her that at least on Facebook it can become somewhat of a reality for her. Also for her interests i put her main activites in the story but they are rather blunt. For her favorite book I put Dracula to show how the story was Gothic.


Friday, October 24, 2008

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

In the story of “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez he writes about a man with wings who appears in a couple’s backyard. The next door neighbor calls this man with wings an angel and so to the town he is now seen as an angel. But he is not the typical image that most people imagine an angel to look like which is how Marquez challenges conventional depictions. “He was dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather….his huge buzzard wings, dirty and half plucked, were forever entangled in the mud.” This image of the angel that Marquez gives to us is very different than the typical image people think of.

When I think of an angel it is beautiful, majestic, has white sparking feathers and is young. Instead in the story the angel is old and balding and the wings don’t even sound beautiful but are “buzzard wings…forever entangled in mud.” These two images are total opposites and what Marque wants to show through these differences is society shouldn’t always believe conventional ideas because things can always be different.

Also how the priest sees the angel shows this. Because the angle doesn’t speak Latin, looks too human, and doesn’t “measure up to the proud dignity of angels” the priest believes he is not an angel. But just because thing don’t fit a certain criteria doesn’t mean they are not so. Marquez also show that society follows these conventions so much that we don’t even leave ourselves open to think things could be different. We just automatically see that it’s different and disregard the possibility of it being a truth like what the priest does.

The reason I think Marquez says “A Tale for Children” is because that is the age where we learn these conventions and through this story he is saying there is always the possibility that things can be different so be open to them. There is no set way or answer to anything and if you learn that as a child then you can learn and experience so much more in life.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

free response #2

In my free response this week i want to talk about the poem "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks. I really likes this poem and its different approach to saying live life because everyone dies. It is a poem about a group of 7 people who are at a place to play pool. They are a group of young people who are careless and do whatever they want. They are not in school, stay out late, drink, dance, and sing. They live life but in a careless way. They dont do the good things society thinks most young people should do. This is why i really like this poem because it is really about doing what you want even if it is seen as good or bad to society as long as your having fun and living life. Who doesnt want to be able to live life without think about all the restrictions society puts on us. If you dont go to school, be home at a reasonable hour, or do thinks in a cetain order you are seen as bad and then outcasted. This poem represents breaking these boundaries because death is inevitable so do what you want to do even if it is not socialy accepted.

Digging imagery

In the poem “Digging” by Heaney he uses metaphor and imagery to show that his life will be very different than the history of his family’s life work. I choose the first picture for this poem because i really thought it showed the image Heaney wanted to get across about digging. Which was that it was hard work and this represents something about his father and himself. Even though digging was hard work, his father loved it. Just like it would be hard for Heaney to choose another path than digging but he loves writting. Despite this difference he shows that he greatly respects his fathers work and that digging has been a legacy of the family when he says “By God, the old man could handle a spade/ just like his old man” But Heaney wants to pursue writing and do great in it just like he thinks his father and grandfather have been great at digging.
The second image i picked was of a man writting and i thought this represented the other part of the image which was his love of writting and how writting was his form of digging. The difference of his father and him is where he shows his love of writing and how much he wants to excel in it because he compares it to his fathers love of digging. He shows this when he writes “But I’ve no spade to follow men like them./ Between my fingers and my thumb/ the squat pen rests./ I’ll dig with it.” And his fathers love of digging is shown in the 6th stanza.
This poem also shows his acceptance that he won’t be able to follow his family legacy of digging. But even though he is choosing a different path he is still doing his own “digging” through writing about their history. He shows that writing can also be an act of excavation but his excavation is of history and trying to find the perfect words to descried and write about that history.

Poem Parody

Sorry

I have taken
your heart
that is so
very naive

in which
you were probably
saving
for someone special

your love
sweet and unconditional
next time
choose wiser

The poem I created imitates "This Is Just to Say" by Williams but is different in many ways. In Williams poem he talks about taking a plum from someone and then later rubbing it in their face. My poem is of much more serious content because instead of taking a plum he is taking someones heart and rubbing in the womens face for letting him. Here my poem shows the same idea Williams has but in a much more serious content. Because a parody is a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing but Williams poem was not serious. It was more like he was leaving a note for some roomate making fun of eating his saved plum but in my poem i take a serious situation and make fun of it so in a way it switches. I took williams non serious poem and made it serious while also making fun of it. I tried to keep everyline the same number of syllables in each line but they are off on some. The content is mostly what i tried to make parody of while still trying to maintain the same form.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

free response #1

In class we went over the Sylvia Plath’s poem called “Metaphors”. I really liked this poem not only for its creativeness in talking about pregnancy and the emotions that come with it but also because it reminds me how important poetry and writing can be. The reason it does that is because I feel that being able to use metaphor to talk about the subject of pregnancy, or any subject of that matter, is so much more effective and powerful to get across an idea (in this case to show how pregnancy can be very scary). She shows that it can be very scary by saying "Boarded the train there's no getting off." This line not only shows the finalization of being pregnant but it also shows the nervousness that comes with such a huge life change. I don’t think this would have been as meaningful if not put in this manner. And this very much relates to the week one assignment of prose vs. form but for me I really didn’t see it until this poem, which is why I liked it so much. It makes me think that all these different forms of writing really do make a difference in ones understanding of an idea and how that understanding can affect them. It’s crazy to me that through nine lines she can explain pregnancy and the baggage of being pregnant but still doing it so creatively. She was creative by using the symbol of nine in everything about the poem and how that relates to the nine months of pregnancy. Also by using the metaphors of big things to show that she was talking about pregnancy. The poem just really makes me appreciate writing and poetry even more.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

1st blog assignment: prose vs. form

Sonnet 73 couplet in prose:
Since you now know that death comes for everyone you have to love life. So live up every moment before you die.

The reason form is more powerful than prose is because it can be left up to interpretation for a deeper meaning. You can get more depth and meaning out of only a few lines or words whereas in prose it is given so plain that there is no sense of other meanings. Changing this couplet to prose for me took away the depth of the idea being shown through the sonnet. The form of ABAB CDCD EFEF helped build up to the couplet GG and helps you to see that the couple shows the lesson learned in the sonnet because it is different and separate. Even though each quatrain is talking about different things they still related. Each quatrain goes from season, to day, to fire all relating to the meaning of death and the significance of life.

If you change this form to prose it takes away the significance of the buildup ultimately also taking away the meaning and beauty of the poem. Prose sometimes takes away how a poem can be like art because it is like being hand fed the significance instead of looking at it and trying to find the purpose of the piece for yourself. Form shows patterns and rhythms that tell as much about the poem as the words can.

Ultimately form provides better understanding of the author’s purpose because it can be interpreted and looked at through so many angles that you are given a full understanding of the writing. Whereas prose just gives you a straight forward answer that you almost no longer need to search for other meanings.