The Lottery: The movie

Plot

For this movie, I would have to add a significant amount of plot to the film. The short story and the storyline of the short story is not enough to keep a movie going for a hour and a half. Becuase of this, I would have to nearly transform what happens with everything before the lottery or what happens after the lottery...or probably both. With this in mind, I would make this movie into a horror movie and have a man mistakingly come into this village. The village would appear to be normal, but after a while, the villagers and the village itself then become stranger as the movie progresses. I would keep the same characters as the short story has, and have each one keep their points of view about how they feel about the lottery. In the film, we would find out how each person feels about the lottery due to their private conversations with the stranger who enters the village. Because this man has entered the village, the villagers will not let him out which will eventually cause him to partake in the lottery. I would probably have him become attracted to a woman, and the woman would be the one chosen for the lottery. The man would be like Mrs. Hutchetson in which he is the one screaming out, "it's not fair." Becuase this element would remain, I could do the best I could with keeping the meaning of the work.

Point of View

The point of view would have to drastically change for the film. Instead of having the ominscent point of view like the short story has, I would have to change to a limited point of view where the whole story focuses on the man who enters the village. There wouldn't be a scene that would occur where he was not relatively present. I do not think this would change the meaning of the work becuase since I have more time with the film, he would be able to maybe talk to people about the lottery before it happens like Mr. Summers or Old man Warner and still get different approaches about it from different people. Because it is possible for me to do this, the meaning of the original work can easily remain with the film. All the film would have to do is incorporate anything that is described in the story with interactions with the man and the other people in the village.

Characterization

For the film, I would definitely use an indirect characterization, similar to how the short story does this. In the short story, the conversations between the villagers is what illustrates their feelings about the lottery and the author never directly describes how each person views the lottery. For the film adaption, I will be able to do this through the man's interactions with other people. They never really will directly talk about the lottery becuase they are either restricted to or maybe its just tradition not to. By doing this, the villagers may indirectly show their feelings about the lottery and whether or not they have their doubts about it or whether they think it is necessary. When he becomes trapped in the village in the film, this is where we will find out more about the other characters. In the short story, we never really know that much about each character except for their feelings on the lottery. But in the film, we will be able to go deeper into the lives of the villagers.

Setting

The setting for this story would pretty much be identical to the story except for the setting before the man gets to the village in the film. With this setting at the beginning of the film, I may be able to hint at and enhance the meaning of the short story by maybe showing how society is similar to the reactions of the villagers during the lottery. But other than that, the setting for the film would remain primarily in the village. However, I would be able to show more detail about the village than the short story because the short story took place primarily in the village square where the lottery took place. But I do not think that slight changes in the setting would diminish or enhance the meaning of the work enough to matter. As long as the theme of the story is kept constant, then that is what is important.

Theme

Keeping the meaing of the original work would be my main focus if I were to make The Lottery into a film. The meaing of this work in my opinion would be how people do not let go of tradition easily which can make us close minded about things. Also, comparing the reactions of the people participating in the lottery to society is another theme to make note of. These themes would definitely be able to remain in the film which would be my main priority. There is no reason that the meaning of the Lottery should be diminished. In showing how people sometimes do not let go of tradition, I would make some of the villagers really creepy building up to the creepiness of the lottery. His woman he recently began a relationship with would be chosen and he would then be the one to resemble society and shout about how its not fair.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Film)

Plot

While the the film and short story of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button share similar themes and the basis to the story line are pretty much the same, the two also share many differences. To start with the similarities, both story show the story of a man who is born old and has to cope with his problem of aging backwards. Because of how this is kept consistent between the two, some themes between the two are kept the same. However, this is really the only significant detail kept consistent. The significant differences then become numerous. For instance, one major change the movie made was that at the birth of Benjamin, the mother dies and Benjamin's father puts him at the doorstep of a nursery home. In the short story, the mother remains alive and the father keeps the baby. This changes how we view Benjamin Button in the movie. In the movie, he grows up with the old people in the nursery and this causes us to compare Benjamin to older people. His mind is that of a child, but, nevertheless, he acts like the older people in the nursery home. Because of this, I was able to observe how a child's mind in an aged person's body is almost identical to a normal old person and how older people act. The film also went to include scenes how aging backwards is similar to aging forwards like, for example, learning how to walk was something that Benjamin went through because he was in wheelchair before that.

Point of View

The point of view between the short story and the film are completely different. In the short story, there is an omniscent point of view; however, in the film, the story is told in almost two points of view. The first is Benjamin Button himself while the story of his life is told from a diary that a woman reads throughout the movie. The second comes from the old lady in the hospital bed who would also help contribute to the story. With this different point of view, I felt that I became more connected with Benjamin Button and understood him as a character better. This is because through this different point of view in the movie, we can learn more personal things about Benjamin including how he truly was as a character. In the short story, the omniscent point of view allows us to get more information about other characters, but in the movie, we are limited only to what Benjamin knows. With this more personal view in the movie, we can more easily compare Benjamin to other characters that are old when he is old looking but truly young.

Characterization

Benjamin Button is not a very complex person in the short story. Its simply an overview of his life, but we never get to know him too well making him a flat character. But in the movie, with the story from the diary being told in Benjamin's own voice, we get more of a feel of what he really is like making him into more of a complex person. With this complexity, the character is able to better establish relationships with others. In the short story, he has relationships with his father and wife, but they are not told in very much detail or complexity. It's simply a stoy being told. However, in the movie, he establishes multiple, complex relationships with others in the nursing homes. These relationships then are capable of adding more themes to the movie than the short story was capable of doing. Like the book however, both characters are developed through indirect characterization which almost force us to compare him to old people when he is young allowing us to further understand certain themes.

Setting

The setting between the movie and the film are very different. The short story begins on 1860 around the civil war time while the film begins on the day WWI ended which was Benjamin's day of birth. However, this time change allows us to understand that the themes present in this novel are timeless. Moreover, the two share a similar setting in relationship to how the story begins and ends. In both versions, the stories begin with them growing up in a certain place and having to be taken care of. Then, in both, Benjamin goes off to live his life whether it be to fight a war as in the short story, or to live on a fishing boat as in the movie. However, in both, when they degress to being young, when in fact they are old, both versions have Benjamin returning to his home and having to be taken care of again until he dies as a baby. This setting shows how it is identical to that of a normal aging man. So the movie keeping this aspect of the short story helps the story itself remain with a few certain themes.

Theme

The short story was difficult to extract any sort of theme from is becuase of it lack of depth. But the movie shared themes included in the short story plus any more that are not present in the short story due to the films depth and complexity. One theme that I was able to learn from the movie was to be grateful for things while you have them. Since Benjamin was a child as an old man, he was exposed to others that were already old and would therefore die in Benjamin's lifetime. So Benjamin at first had to learn to be grateful for what he had because he found out that people don't stay in his life forever early on. While watching this movie, I was quick to be able to spot this theme, not because they simply said this, but because the increased complexity and depth of the movie allowed for it to be easy to find a theme. The short story seemed so blunt and shallow that finding a theme quite a task.

Yes....it happened

Ok, so I know that this is not really too significant for this short story, but the magnitude of just how awesome this idea is is worth blogging about. So in the short story Popular Mechanics... the baby had to have been ripped in half!! (or at least a socket or arm pulled out). And in my opinion there are many details in the story that support this. First of all, for about half of the story, the man and his soon to be ex-wife are desperately and emotionally fighting to have the baby. Eventually, this results in a tug of war battle (the baby acting as the rope in this situation). The last line then states: "In this manner, the issue was decided." If one of them had gotten the baby, I don't think that this would have simply decided the issue. If the other one had got the baby then the one who lost the baby would have deifinitely gone and tried to get the baby back immediatley after. I think this because of how emotionally they were fighting for the baby. This is my reasoning for how the baby got ripped in half because the alternative meaning just does not make sense.

Whoa!

One of the last question in the book asking about Your Ugly, Too asks where situational irony is present in the short story. When thinking about it, I remember a time in the story when I was completely taken off guard by something I never expected. This was when Evan told Zoe that the guy she wanted Zoe to meet was a really nice and fun guy that maybe Zoe would like. So when I pictured this guy, I pictured him as being a simple well humored man. However, when we are first introduced to him, his costume is just a fullout naked woman. This is not what I would picture a really nice guy wearing. So when I got this dexription, it gave me a new image of what he really was like. What really made my new image of him more valid was when he told the incredibly vulgar joke. I though it was really funny how that joke was what he thought she was going to tell him. So this situational irony really emphasized what he was really like.

Role Reversal!!

The irony present in the short story The Drunkard is what leads to a lot of the humor. For example, there is a huge role reversal in the story. Normally, the wife and the son have to put up with the father's occasional drinking problem. They knew that they would have to watch out for funerals because that is what the would use as an excuse to drink. So the mother put the son in charge of watching the father. This isn't the main role reversal, but kind of is one because one would expect the father to be watching over the son, but instead the son (who apparently is 9) is the one who is told to watch over his own father. When the father takes his son to the bar, the son ends up being the one who gets drunk and his father has to angrily escort him home. So this is where the irony plays in, becuase it is very ironic that the father is having to watch over his drunk. So the author then plays off this irony and makes it even more humorous by having the son say innappropriate things that are not expected.

The Island

In the short story The Lottery, it really resembles a movie I had seen before called The Island. This movie, similar to the story, consisted of clones who participated in a "lottery" that they thought would take them to some type of paradise island. But instead, it wasn't a random selection at all, and the person chosen was actually chosen to die. This resembes the short story remarkably. Not only in the plot, but in the similarity between how the characters in the movie perceive the lottery and how us as the readers perceive the lottery at the beginning. In the beginning of the short story, I perceived the lottery to be some type of good thing that could be won among the townspeople, just like how the clones perceived the lottery in the movie. But by the end, we find out that the lottery is a sacrificial type act and someone ends up getting stoned to death. In the movie, the clones figure out what the lottery really is, so the viewpoints are parallel.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Plot

In the curious case of Benjamin Button, I almost see the plot as a backwards storyline. This is due to how the main character, Benjamin Button, is born a seventy year old man and then progressively ages younger. In the plot their still exists an exposition, rising action, etc., but those elements of the plot almost seem reversed (but they are not) due to the reversed aging of Benjamin. However, the plot consisting of the reversed aging is what significantly impacts the story and how I was able to compare different ages. By having Benjamin Button being born and "apparently of 70 years old" inevitably causes the reader to compare him to a child during that part of the story, and visa versa towards the end of the story. By this occuring, I was able to spot out how old people are so alike helpless children and how children how like the old. I believe this to be a theme of the work making the plot and essential element to understanding it.



Point of View

The point of view present in this short story can be described as ominiscent point of view. The narrator does not know detail solely on Benjamin, but also on his family around him. The first few pages are about Roger Button alone. By having an ominiscent point of view, the reader can be given more detail about other characters. This helps me compare Benjamin to other characters. For example, on page 50, the author described Roscoe as having "obviously no heartiness in feeling toward [Benjamin]--there was even perceptible a tendency on his son's part to think that Benjamin...was somewhat in the way." By being able to have an all-knowing narrator, we can get descriptions like these. This description about Rosco helped us compare Benjamin to and old man. At this time in the story, Benjamin growing more a child, and as grown children take care of their parents when they get too old, Benjamin needed to be cared for by his son. This is how ominiscent point of view is necessary for this story.



Characterization

The author reveals Benjamin to us through indirect characterization. This, again, is also an effective tool in comparing Benjamin's apparent age to people of his true age. By only being able to figure out Benjamin through his actions, we are given even more detail and experiences that help us compare him. If we were told that, as an old man (when actually he was just born), Benjamin was senile and cranky, I would not compare him to a child because this is not an accurate description of a child's personality. But through action that can both replicate an old man's action and child's action, we can easily compare the two. For example, on page 20, Benjamin's father warns him that doing bad things such as what Benjamin had done earlier could "stunt his growth." Regular children would noramally be told this, but in this case Benjamin is and it resembles that of how a parent would talk to a small child. Also, Benjamin is most certainly a dynamic character throughout the short story.



Setting

Throughout the short story there are multiple settings. For the most part, Benjanin remains at his home in what I believe to be Maryland. The only other major settings that occur in the story is when Benjamin goes off to fight the Spanish-American War and goes to college. This setting also shows how both extremes of age are very similar. When Benjamin is seen as a seventy year old (but really just born) he stays at home with his father who takes care of him. Then as he comes to the middle of his life, he enters the military and then goes to college. Then towards his childhood (but really when he is around 50 or so), he has to go back home and since"Hildegarde was now residing in Italy, Benjamin went to live with his son, Roscoe." This resembles the regular setting of a person who ages normally. Children have to stay at home and be taken care of, and old people also have to be at some consistent place and be taken care of.



Theme

While this story was very interesting, it was very hard to extract a theme from it. The story was very easy to follow and was interesting as well. But when I got to the end, it is difficult to find some sort of theme or lesson learned from reading this short story. Because of this, it is neccessary to dwell deeper into what maybe the author wants the reader to get from reading this short story. So when thinking deeply into what a theme could be, I decided that the story teaches how going in the wrong direction in life can be a very bad thing. For Benjamin, he was going in the opposite direction than everyone else in terms of his age. Because of this, he would not change as the other people changed around him. As his wife got older, he got younger and started to dislike the oldness of his wife. He was become her previous youth while she was becoming his previous old age. This brings conflict between the two. There are also many other examples throughout this story which are representative of the theme.

Brutal Truth

Miss Brill is certainly a dynamic character. At the beginning she is a very static character becuase of how she has this routine of simply going to the park every sunday and doing the same things each time. However, there is an event that causes her to change. We are never directly told this as an audience that she has changed, but the detail at the end is what tells us that she does change. At the end of the short story, a boy and a girl are criticizing Miss Brill for always being there and wearing the fur coat. This is what causes her to change. What represents her seperating herself from her normal tradition is when she does not stop at the bakery to get her normal pastry. She walks past it and this symbolizes how she has changed and is therefore a static character.

Sad!!

The short story Once Upon a Time presents an irony that was just very sad. Throughout the story, the parents are afraid of their house being broken into. They make all this security systems and then even put an eccentric bobwire fence that make it impossibe to climb over or get through. If anyone attempted to get through it, they would pretty much die. And this is what happened to the son the couple dearly loved. He was innocently playing a game with himself in which he tried to get through the fence but killed himself. So the security that they put up to protect themselves is what ended up killing their son. Complete irony!! This irony is also what helps contribute to the theme of the novel. I believe the theme of this novel to be that what we do to try to protect ourselves can actually come back to hurt us if we take that protection to the extreme. This theme is irony in itself, so having the situational irony in the story only adds to the effects of the the theme.

Like a child

In the short story A worn path, the main character, Phoenix, is never directly characterized. She seems like an odd character and through her actions and words, the author is able to indirectly characterize her. First of all, we find out that she is African American and is an old lady. She needs a cane to walk and she almost seems misguided leading me to believe that she is fairly old. However, while reading this story and observing Phoenix, it appears as if she acts like a child. For example, she asks someone in the city to tie her shoe for her. Also, on the last page of the short story, when the nurse offers to give her pennies from her purse, Phoenix out of nowhere says that 5 pennies is a nickel. Out of any type of person, I could only see a child saying such a thing. So this whole process of Phoenix's indirect characterization and displaying how she acts leads me to almost believe that Phoenix is a child. Maybe not literally in the story but metaphorically. I don't have any clue to what the theme to this story is, but I think that this comparison between her and a child is significant.

Both types

In the short story Eveline, the main character Eveline seem to be strugging mostly with internal conflict. This conflict appears to be Eveline wanting to escape with her boyfriend Frank. Throughout the whole story, Eveline is sitting at at her window thinking about the whole situation and why she wants to escape. But in thinking about this, she brings about the external conflict that seems to occur as well. She describes her father as being violent towards her and her brothers. Then later on in the short story, we find out that her mother had died from and illness and her father had been a nice person when her mother was alive. From this information given, I can conclude that because of her mother's death, this is what caused him to be violent and maybe and alcoholic. These two conflicts provide a better understanding for why she has a desire to leave and run away from home. But Eveline was told by her mom before she died to keep the home to keep the house in order for as long as she could. I believe that becuase of this promise that Eveline made to her mother, that is what caused her not to leave with Frank at the end.

different

The stories from this unit were much different than the stories from the unit before. There seems to be less of a theme brought on by the plot to theses stories. They focus more on the development of the characters and this is where the theme comes from. But if not looked into enough, the stories just seem very pointless and without meaning. I have had trouble extracting any type of theme from these three short stories. The best one I can guess is for the short story Hunters in the Snow and how the characters represent almost how inhumane society is. But for the other two stories, I can kind of analyze the characters and see if any go through any changes and how they contribute to the story but that's about it. My hardest story to find any meaning in was Bartleby the Svrivener. I have absolutely no idea what Bartleby represented or what this story was supposed to teach me! Let's just say that by the end of this novel I was mad because I felt that I gained absolutely nothing from reading this story. Some stories give meaning...but this story just takes away and hour and a half of your life. I'll probably find out soon exactly what it was about, but for now...I have nothing.

His effect

For this post, I am answering the question on the seperate page on how Bartleby's "I would prefer not to" affects the routine of the lawyer and employees. This phrase is the majority of what Bartleby says throughout the story. He starts off like some normal guy and then we figure out that he not so normal. But after a while of Bartleby repeating this phrase, the people at work around him almost start to inadvertantly say what he ways. For a whole page in the story approximately, the people in the office start to use the word prefer as well. Also, by Bartleby saying this and not participating in anything in the office, his other workers are forced to do the work required of Bartleby. However, he is never fired (during this beginning part) which is peculiar. Bartleby is refusing to do work in a way that the lawyer is not used to he almost has no idea what to do with Bartleby. He goes back and forth of being showing anger and pity. However, the routine of the lawyer is also affected because earlier in the short story, he mentions how he is a man who has never had to worry about to much in his life. But Bartleby comes in and presents him with all this stuff to think about he has absolutely no idea and he is just constantly consumed from trying to figure out what to do.

Makes no sense...yet

In the short story Hunters in the Snow, many events occur in the plot that do not seem to make sense with events that occured earlier in the story. There are many examples of this. For instance, when Kenny shoots the dog, he seems to just do it out of impulse. Before he kills the dog, he expresses how he hates it just as he said he hated the wooden post. But in fact, he shot the dog because the owner had asked him to. After finding this out and going back and re reading the dog shooting scene, it still did not appear as if he was planning on shooting it. He never told his friends about it, which was strange, and makes me begin to question the true relationship between the three. Another part that does not makes sense is when the friends seem all worried that Tub had shot Kenny. But in the final sentence of the story, we figure out that they meant to take the wrong turn to the hospital almost the whole time. They seemed sincere in caring for their friend, but not at the end. It is almost inhumane how they act at the end. So the plot doesn't seem to make sense with what happens later in the story and I'm not sure whether or not this is supposed to represent something....in which I'm sure that it is.

Shouldn't be talking

In the short story Everyday Use, the reader uses irony concerning Dee. At the end of the story, Dee addresses how her family, which includes her mother and sister, don't understand their own heritage. However, this is ironic because throughout the story, it is apparent that Dee does not understand her own heritage and even appears to be running away from it by marrying a man of a different culture and even changing her name completely to that of the different culure. She is the one who doesn't understand her own culture. But how does this contribute to the meaning of the text? Well, the title of the story is Everyday Use, and this relates to how the things that Dee wants to take from her mother's house to keep for herself and use as decoration are actually items that are used daily. So taking these items, especially the quilt, kind of relates how she is the one ignorant of her culture. So the use of irony and how it contributes to the text are successful ways of showing her arrogant and ignorant character.

Our first week...

So this is our first week of reading short stories and there are many similarities and differences between the poetry unit and this unit. First of all, this unit is going to require much more time to read the stories, but while we still have to analyze a lot, it will not require the tough analyzation skills that poetry did. But this is only my opinion right now and it could possibly change. I would have to say that I enjoyed reading the short stories more than I did the poetry. I really enjoyed "How I met my husband" and "Interpreter of Maladies". However, "A rose for Emily" was the one I least enjoyed. To me it didn't seem to have much point other than to describe a lunatic woman who killed the man she loved in order to keep him around. Yea...I bet he was real fun to keep around after that. I have to say it was interesting and different, but it just seemed pointless. However, I am guessing that I will learn its value by the end of the week. Overall, my prediction is that I will enjoy this unit far more than I enjoyed the last.

All makes sense

In the story "A Rose for Emily", their are a few details that foreshadow the ending of the story. First of all, the arsenic she bought is one of the biggest indicators that she poisoned the man. When she bought it, she would not give the reason for buying the poison. Also, when people knew she bought it, they thought that she did that so that she could poison herself. But when that doesn't happen, then you begin to wonder why she bought the arsenic, which was for her love. Also, another indicator is that when Homer returned home, he was never seen again. And this is very suspicious as well. A final detail that foreshadows the ending is whenever anybody saw Emily through her downstairs window, there was not one time when people saw Homer as well. So all these details lead to the end of the story when the people find Homer dead on the mattress.

Buildup

The Plot of "Interpreter of Maladies" is what causes the end of the story and Mrs. Das' true feelings towards Mr. Kapasi even more surprising. The story is told in 3rd person, but only focuses on the thoughts of Mr. Kapasi. Because of this, the timeline of events that happen throughout the story are mostly his thoughts and the buildup of how he increasingly becomes attracted towards Mrs. Das. This buildup is what lead me to believe that Mrs. Das actually had the same feelings towards him, but there is no proof of this before she tells him her secret. She is interested when he tells her about his job, and this also lead me to think she was attracted to him as well. But it ended up that she did not. When she spills out her secret to him, Mr. Kapasi and the reader find out that she was only interested in him becasuse she was hoping "[he] could help [her] feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy." This is what really makes me mad is that she was so ignorant to think that even though he was an interpreter for a doctor, that he could "interpret" her problems and suggest what to do for her. When she does this, it crushes Mr. Kapasi and surprised me that she did not really have any affectionate feelings towards him.

Whoa! That came out of nowhere...

Throughout the short story "How I met my husband", Edie seems to have something going on with the pilot who comes to her part of the country to fly people in his plane. In the beginning of the story, it is not certain whether or not the two have a "thing" going on. But this is made certain towards the end when the pilot "sat beside [her] and started thosse little kisses, so soft..." This is what the majority of the story leads up to, and because of this and the title, the reader would expect that Edie and the pilot end up being together by the end of the story. Even on the final page of the story, she is still waiting for the pilot's letter to come in the mail. However, it is not until the last paragraph that the reader finds out that she ends up the mailman from whom she was waiting for to deliver the letter to her. So this is the situational irony of the story, because the reader would not expect the author to have Edie end up marrying the mailman when almost the whole story consisted of her and the pilot. This seemingly abrupt ending really puts the cap on the situational irony and leaves the reader almost dumbfounded at how it ended...or else that is how I was left at the end.

General Overview

As the poem "Elegy for my Father, Who Is Not Dead" continues, I forgot the name of the title of the poem and as I read through it, I was pictured the father as being dead. But the first two lines of the poem represent how the poem is a foreshadowing. Moreover, the speaker desciribes how his father is ready for death, but how he, himself is not. I believe that this is only due to the person's age. I think that the speaker would be pretty old because usually it's old people who believe they have done everything they can in life and now they are ready for death. But the speaker says specifically, "He's ready. I am not." This is mostly due to age and the speaker is simply believes that he is too young to die and follow his father into heaven. However, one thing I am not certain about is if the speaker's father wants him to follow the father into heaven right after he as died, or if he is going to paitiently wait for the speaker to die so they can be reunited in heaven. In my opinion, the second one seems like the right one.

Delight in Disorder

In the poem "Delight in Disorder", I feel that maybe I am within the cone of meaning of the poem, but also, I may be way outside, but I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot. Throughout the poem, the speaker seems to be describing all the clothing a woman is wearing and seems to have just thrown on. He describes clothes such as her scarf, "tempestuous petticoat", dress, and more. But when I get to the line which says, "A fine distraction", I am under the impression that the speaker is saying that under all this disorderly, but delightful, clothing, there is completely different person. The speaker is saying that this person is just trying to cover up who they really are by putting all this clothing on them to appear different. Many appear try to act like someone who they are not, and the author is describing this kind of person in the poem. They may want to appear wealthy, beautiful, etc. But in reality, they are none of these things.

Crazy twist!

In the poem "Edward", the pattern of the poem is one tool that helps me identify the irony of the poem. So firstly, I will describe the pattern. Each staza is broken up into Edward saying something to his mom, his mom replying, then the next staza is introduced. We know who is talking because the two call each other by name when talking to one another. However, here is where we understand the irony of the poem party through the pattern. Whenever Edward says "Mother, Mother", that is the only way her refers to her. He never calls her dear or any other word that shows much affection. However, when he confesses that he killed his father, he refers to his father as "my father dear." This represents how he still had affection for his father when he killed him meaning he did not do it out of anger or hatred of his father because he had affection for him. Then the last line of the poem is what solidifies this statement and expands on it further by Edward saying, "Such counsels you gave to me, O." In this line, Edward is saying that his mother was the one who told him to go kill his father. This is where the irony plays in because the mom is never really seen as being the bad person of the poem until this final line.

Almost like reading something else

In the poem "Lonely Hearts", the poem is in first person so I instantly begin to think that the speaker is solely one person. I think that the speaker is just putting out all these descriptions about themself write them as if they appear in the "personals" section of a newsapaper. But then I begin to look at the form and pattern of the poem and realize that this is not the case. Each stanza is indeed in first person, but they are all about different descriptions of different people. They are not just based around one person. Also, since these descriptions seperate people are putting out have their own stanza, I then begin to realize that I am almost reading just directly out of the "personals" section from a newspaper. However, the last line of each stanza bring about the central idea of an unrealistic expectation. Each stanza either ends with asking if they live in London or if they can make their wish come true. So the person reading these little personals is the one having the unrealistic expectations.

My reaction to tone

For some of these poems, tone was a very easy to recognize because I understood what the poem was about giving the tone more meaning. However, for other poems that I did not quite understand, it was difficult for me to establish what the tone was. Sure I could go and look at the diction and try to find out the tone of the poem, but I don't think this is enough. Without knowing what the idea of the poem is, then the tone is meaningless to me and even though I looked at the diction, I could still be wrong about guessing what the tone is. Knowing what the theme and central idea of the poem are key to knowing the tone in my opinion because simply knowing what the speaker is talking about would give me a very good idea of the tone. If the poem is about death, then the poem is most likely going to be negative or sad in some way. Then looking at diction and such would solidify what I believe the tone to be. So in order to truly know the tone of the poem, I think the reader need to know firsthand what the poem is talking about.

Unlike the others

In the poem "Getting Out", the main idea is how these two people are married but it somehow just was not working out so eventually got a divorce. This is the quick, shallow version. But when read into, it seems as if the couple getting the divorce almost didn't want to get the divorce as if they still loved each other. For example, in the last stanza, the speaker describes how she and her husband were holding on to each other crying and almost just had to force themselves away from each other. So maybe it's not that the couple simply got in a fight or one did something wrong in the marriage. There has to be another reason that made them get a divorce simply because they had to even though they still loved each other. I believe that the reason for their divorce is found in the first stanza. It keeps taling about how they kept trying and trying to do something but they kept failing at doing it. What I believe they were trying to do was have a child, but for some reason they could not. They both wanted a child, so because of this, they got a divorce becuase they felt they had to go off and be with different people if they were to have a child.

Threatening

In the poem "The Apparition", the tone is very easy to describe. Throughout the poem, the speaker seems to speak in a very threatening and harsh tone. This can easily be identified just my the main idea of the poem in which the speaker would haunt the girl if she were to every leave him. This part is where the threatening tone is established. He then begins to spit out the harsh truth at her by saying how any other man would not be able to satisfy here as he would be albe to. This harshness is easily seen in just the idea of this section of the poem. But the tone is established in other ways as well. First of all, the word choice establishes the theme pretty well. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is saying that IF you do this, THEN I will do this. Usually this kind of word choice represents an ultimatum or threat. Finally, the tone is also achieved through the diction. Words or phrases such as "poor aspen wretch" or "cold quicksilver sweat" all would be phrases that would be used in a poem with harsh toem and this reinforces the idea of a threatening tone.

Unexpected Irony

In the poem "My mistress' eyes", the poem is full of irony throughout the poem, and the big "bang!" part of the irony really comes out at the end. Usually when men describe the woman they love, they use hyperboles and go on to say very cheesy things. They may compare the girl to something that is far more amazing and beautiful than the girl, but they make the comparison anyway and "lie" about it. However, the speaker in this poem does quite the opposite. Instead, he goes on to describe how many other things in the world are much more beautiful than her. This is ironic becuase men usually don't say things like this to girls, the reader expects him to say nice things like how her eyes are like the sun. But throughout the poem he goes on to make these "negative" comparisons. However, the big irony comes to play at the end of the poem. He goes on to say how he loves her and she is as beautiful as all the other girls who are lied to (or exaggerated to). The reader would expect the speaker to not love this woman and probably even think she was ugly in the narrator's eyes. But instead, she is supposedly beautiful and throughout the whole poem, he was just mocking those who do exaggerate to their women.

I can relate

"Next of course god america i" was the poem in this unit that I could relate to best. The example given in class that is a very good example of this poem's theme is that when I say the pledge of allegiance every day, I never pay attention to it. Those jumble of words have in a way lost meaning to me and whether or not they were jumbled and and didn't make sense wouldn't matter. There are so many things in society that are repeated so much and become so cliche, that they lose almost all their meaning unless the speaker actually takes time to think about what they are actually saying or doing. And that's another point, the speaker isn't only talking about not thinking about what we say (which is conveyed through the first half of the poem), but by also the repeated actions that we do. We may go through the day without even thinking about what we are doing and why we are doing it in the first place. If we were to stop and think about half the things we were doing, we would not be able to explain the purpose of our actions. So that could be another good theme to take from this poem... just stop and think.

Mr. Z

I am kind of proud of myself because I think I partly understand the Poem "Mr. Z" just by reading it multiple times and not having to use any other source to understand it. Each stanza seems to go through a different phase in his life in which the first deals with his entire childhood and how he dealt with racial pressures until the last stanza that mentions the character's death. While the poem never directly addresses how the character is someone of another race, many clues are given to confirm this observation. For example the first line states, "taught early that his mother's skin was the sign of error" shows that he was never ignorant of the fact that he and his family and anyone of his race were looked down upon simply because of the color of his skin. Thoough, the first stanza goes on to descibe that he did not let this fact affect him. He tried hard at everything he did and would chose "raceless views of each situation." However, when trouble came to him about racial issues, he dealt with it. But I'm going to skip to the last line which I think criticizes viewing people not as a whole, but by their race. The writer's acclaim the man as the "most distinguished [member] of his race" instead of viewing him as a person all of humanity. I'm sure if it were a white person, the writer's would say, "one of the most distuinguished people to ever live."

Repitition

"APO 96225" has a pattern that really establishes what I think to be the theme of the poem. The whole poem consists of stanzas no more than 3 lines that all end with either the soldier replying to his family's letter or his mother replying. Each time the family replies saying that they want to know what it's really like in the war, but he avoids these questions and replies by saying something irrevelant. However, when he does tell them, his mother gets upset by what he describes. This form of the repitition in which it goes back and forth helps establish the theme of the poem in which I think it symblizes how the average person wants to know about what really goes on and their curiosity overshadows how they might not like the truth. But when the truth actually does come and they get a sense of things, it is too much for the normal person to handle. So the repitition of the last line in which he replies by saying what he did in the first letter may be the soldier's realization of this. However, I am not sure about that.

It's all a paradox!!

In the poem "Much Madness is divinest Sense", a word that sums up the whole poem is paradox. First of all, I don't think that this poem can be thoroughly understood until the words Assent and Demure are known because after knowing these words, I had a greater understanding of the poem. But back to paradoxes, the title itself gives away the paradox in which the speaker states, "Much Madness is divinest the Sense." This is stating that if you're mad, then that is divine and you are sane. This seems to contradicts itself. But as you read further into the poem, you realize that the speaker is saying that society expects the sane to simply go along with everyone else, and if you don't, then you are mad. So the speaker is criticizing sociey and its beliefs. The function of this paradox is that it causes the reader to think about the point being made in depth making the reader understand and believe it better. If a writer simply states that it is mad to go along with society, the reader is going to forget about that line soon after because they didn't have to think to hard about it and it's probably just another cliche thing they are hearing. So in order to really get a reader to listen to a point you are making, the key is to get them to think.

Unit overview: Chapter 5.

I enjoyed these poems much more than the previous unit. The reason for this is that I understood these much easier than the previous unit. "Dream Deferred", "Bright Star", "February", "Pink dog" were all easy reads. I don't know if this is because they were just simply easier or if it's becuase I have improved in my interpretation of poetry. I'm hoping that it's my skills that have improved. All these poems were comparing some object to some greater thing and that is why I liked the themes so much. By using these comparisons, the author was able to bring out good themes in the poems that we can relate to. However, there are still one or two poems in this chapter that I had trouble understanding until I received the help from an outside source, so I still need practice when analyzing poetry.

Pink Dog

Pink Dog was a very interesting read for me and I think I understand one of the major points of the poem but I'm not 100 percent sure. The pink dog itself symbolizes, I think, a prostitute. The prostitute is not literally naked, but that is how others see her. They can see what she really is like a dog with no fur (pink dog). However, as the poem continues, the speaker starts to get more vulgar towards the "pink dog" representing how he does not agree with what prostitutes do. It shows that he judges them. Also, I thought the line "Where are your babies?" was a humerous line because he is saying that the prostitute participates in so much sinful sex that she should have a lot of kids by now. Instead, she is using methods so she does not become pregnant and the speaker seems to mock this. In addition, as the poem goes on, it gets harder for me to understand what the speaker is relating the prostiture to.

February: the lonely month

Throughout the whole poem of "February", it has a very negative tone and negative approach to life except for the last 6 lines or so. The author achieves this through diction and pretty much the main idea of the poem. She does this through diction, first of all, by giving words that seem to have a negative feel or attitude. For example, the first line, "Winter. Time to eat fat." show a negative attitude. First of all, winter is usually seen as a dreary and cold time of year and eating fat is what people do when they don't take care of themselvs or are just depressed. Also, "pollution pours out of our chimneys" is a negative way of saying how the smoke escapes our chimneys. All these negative words and phrases represent how the speaker has a negative approach to this time of year and of a lot of people such as men probably because of valentine's day and the speaker is lonely. However, towards the end of the poem, she gets a more optimistic view as she tells the cat to go out and stop whining in which she is really talking to herself.

"Dream Deferred" theme

In my opinion, "Dream Deferred was an easy read...therefore I liked it very much. However, that is obviously not the only reason, of course. I enjoyed reading about how he compared deferred dreams to different objects or ideas. By comparing it to a "raisin in the sun", or "fester[ing] like a sore, the speaker then easily brings about a very good theme. If summarized in one sentence, I would say the theme is how putting off your dreams or goals only brings about negative effects. Through the main body of the poem, he compared it to images that are easily comparable to a deferred dream. However, the last line is different from the rest. It is more of a metaphor and stands alone to make it stick out. It reads "Or does it explode?" and this line takes a little more interpretation than the others. This is because it can be interpreted a variety of ways. How I interpreted it, however, is that a deferred dream could bring about violence, for example, a dream about civil rights.

Sybolism of the star

Throughout the poem of "Bright Star" the speaker expresses his dislikes and likes about how a star lives. But this overview of the star of course is going to stand for something much more. The star symbolizes how he wants his life to be spent. The reader can pick this up because at the end of the poem he starts describing being with his live and "to feel forever" and "so ever live- or else swoon to death." The reader is comparing his life to the star's life and how he does not want to live alone. Instead, he'd much rather live in the arms of his lover. So because of all this, the reader can then go back through the whole poem and then know how the speaker would want to live his life. So without the last few lines of the poem where the speaker references himself, it would not be as clear to understand he is relating the star to himself.

Difficult to understand

Aside from a few poems, I do not like a majority of the poems introduced this week. For one, I am not a fan of poetry and its non-literal form. I have always had difficult trying to figure out the theme of the poem. For some, I come up with one that I can agree with but for others, I have no idea what they are trying to tell me. For example, the convergence of Twain poem is one that I have reread over and over again but cannot decide if its just simply describing the Titanic disaster or if there is some deeper meaning the speaker is trying to get across. It could be that I am approaching these poems so far from the wrong angle, but so far I am having difficulty understanding these on my own. After group discussions, I understand the poem, but for some of those poems discussed, I could never have come up with that material on my own. I think that I am just going to need some more practice.

Relationship between the two

Spring is one of the few poems in this week's collection that seems to be somewhat joyful. This is mostly due to the fact that it compares Spring (a normally happy/beautiful time of year) to the Garden of Eden (a place of infinite beauty and joy). Throughout the poem there are words and references that seem to compare the two. For example, peartree could represent the tree from which Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree causing original sin. "Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy." This line can be easily seen as representing Adam and Eve. As the line describes, the two were very innocent minded even though they disobeyed God's will. So my reaction to this poem was that the speaker was just trying to describe how beautiful he or she thought Spring was. Comparing it to the Garden of Eden makes it appear even more appealing and joyful.

My view of the poem.

When I read this poem, I got a whole different understanding from it then the class did when we discussed it. But for me, the central theme was: even when we are given so much, as God does for us, we are ungrateful for what we are given. For me, the father in this poem represented the God and I think that the him making the fire is God giving us warmth and comfort when it could just be cold and dreary. "No one ever thanked him." This line is where I got the feeling how the author is describing how ungrateful humanity is and this is pretty much where the central theme comes from. The very first word of the poem "Sundays" is also where I get the feeling that this poem is religious since sunday is the most important day of the week for Christians. However, during class discussion, it was said that the poem's theme was mainly about the speaker not having a good relationship with the father. For instance, "Speaking indifferently to him" shows the poor relationship. However, I believe that it represents the poor relationship with God that most people have.

A whole greater meaning

"The Widow's Lament in the Springtime" is full of imagery representative of the tone and theme. The imagery in the description of the of her lawn and the flowers are mostly visual imagery in which the speaker creates a mental picture we can see. The theme of the poem is how she doesn't want to leave the memories of her husband, even when she has the choice of going to a place so she can forget (the marsh). As she uses this imagery on her lawn and flowers, it eventually represents how they symbolize her memories of her husband and even though they make her sad, she doesn't want to leave them because she feels it is equivalent to leaving her husband. These three lines strongly represent this idea, "some bushes yellow and some red but the grief in my heart is stronger than they for though thery were my joy..." So because of how the imagery is used, it helps establish the theme of the poem. Also, the tone of the poem can be determined because of this imagery. Since the imagery brings about the theme of not wanting to forget her husband, that only brings a tone of nostalgia.

Very easily seen

Attempting to discover the tone of "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" is a very simple task. From the start, or even getting a sense of it from the title, the tone appears to be a very dreary and negative tone. This is mainly becuase the topic of the poem references death because of the funeral in the speaker's head. But not only does this central idea of the poem unveil the tone, the tone seems to be achieved through diction and style. First of all, Dickinson uses many negative words such as "mourners", "treading", "numb", "creak", etc. These words represent the tone ideally because of how they seem to fit the theme of death. When trying to get a sense of the poem's tone, the first thing to look for is proper diction to fit the tone becuase words such as these would never be used for a poem whose central theme was happiness. Lastly, I believe her style in part attributes to the tone because the ending of the poem just seems to cut off which resembles the suddenness of death bringing a dreary tone to the poem.

Interpretation of Poetry

I think that it is very interesting that poems have no set meaning. The authors of course have a set idea of what they describe in their poem but since they do not go and give a summary of their poem as novels do, many can be interpreted in any which way. I agree with Perrine's method of interpreting poetry because it would only make sense that correct interpretations should satisfy every detail of the poem. Something that makes this very interesting is that the author of the poem must be a very skilled writer. The writer has to be sure that the poem contains no contradictions that would leave a skilled reader confused. They must be sure taht every detail is correct of the central image. This is why not simply everyone can go out and write a "successful poem". Writing poems either takes great practice or is a natural gift.

This reading will definitey have me looking at poems entirely in a new way. What I have always done, I believe, was do a kind of scan of the poem and from there try to get what the gist of it was saying. I have never truly analyzed poetry. For example, when I read over some of the poems in this article, Perrine later analyzed it pulling out key words that I didn't even remember reading. I can't just read poetry like a novel, I must be much more careful and precise. Because of this article, I have realized the correct way of reading poetry and will try to improve my skill in that area. Even as poets have to be very skilled, the readers also have to have skill and experience if they wish to correctly analyze a poem. So during our poetry quarter, I am going to strive to become a better analyzer by the end.

Overall- final blog

The things they carried was a very good read for me. I mean I was able to read it in two days. The stories were interesting, full of depth, and O' Brien was really able to get me to feel some version of what he felt in his stories. When comparing The Sun Also Rises to The Things They Carried, the Things They Carried was far superior. It had so much more that the reader could take from it and put into their everyday life. In The Sun Also Rises, there seemed to be no point or plot or moral that I could take from it and it was just not an enjoyable read. Tim O' Brien did an excellent job keeping me engaged in the novel and I just really liked the setup of the little short stories. I have not read a fiction book that was set up that way and it really made it enjoyable to read.

Inception

About a week ago, I watched Inception for the first time. Now I have already seen it twice because i like . But in the last chapter "The Lives of the Dead", I thought it was interesting how he would dream just so he could be with the girl he loved. In the movie, the main character also dreams to spend time with his deceased wife. "My dream had become a secret meeting place, and in the weeks after she died I couldn't wait to fall asleep at night." Whether or not this is the exact version of what happened to O' Brien or the exaggerated truth, the reader can easily tell that he loved her immensely. However, I think doing something like that could have some negative effects. After her death, just remembering her all the time is going to make it hard for him to move on. After someone's death, the best thing to do is to try and move on the best he or she can. Even though I say this, however, I think that the dreams were a good thing for O' Brien because he still has them and he was able to move on.

Afraid of the Dark

Little kids are always somewhat scared of the dark. I remember when I was 5 or 6 years old, I would have to move a coat hanger I had in my room to the hallway becuase I thought its shadows looked scary. However, the common idea is that as you age and become an adult, the dark is no longer a problem. Adults do not get scared in the dark. O' Brien finds this statement to be false and I find it very interesting. "Because the darkness squeezes you inside yourself, you get cut off from the outside world, the imagination takes over." If a soldier is alone in Vietnam in the dark keeping watch, he's not going to be able to see very much. Because of this, his mind, or imagination, is going to start making the soldier think some weird things becuase there is nothing else to imagine. I just thought I'd comment on this part of the story becuase when your in a jungle, by yourself, in the pitch dark, you become a kid again.

Just as dangerous

On page 183, O' Brien uses an analogy that shows how some places in Vietnam are as dangerous as a sporting event in the United States. "You could still die of course-- once a month we'd get hit with mortar fire-- but you could also die in the bleachers at Met Stadium in Menneapolis, bases loaded, harmon Killebrew coming to the plate." This analogy is humorous and shows how not everywhere in Vietnam was too dangerous. The way the author uses it is effective becuase it very well gets his point across that even though they would get fired upon every once in a while, its not too important to worry much about defense. Describing how someone could just as easily die at a Mets game is enough to show this. While this is a good analogy, I have noticed, however, that the author does not use many analogies in his stories. His stories are much more straightfoward. Because of this, what the reader really has to think about is how true the stories O' Brien tells really are.

Give him a break

In the chapter "The Ghost Soldiers", O' Brien describes how he was shot twice, and on the second time, the medic who was on the field with them was brand new to combat. Because of this, he was very scared and when O' Brien was shot and going through shock, it took him ten minutes just to go and revive him. O' Brien almost died and had to be taken off the field of combat becuase of this. "So when I got shot the second time, in the butt, along the Song Tra Bong, it took the son of a bitch almost ten minutes to work up the nerve to crawl over to me...I'd almost died of shock." When this happened, he had some harsh feelings towards the medic who was called Bobby Jorgenson. I think that O' Brien should have given him a break. O' Brien described how he wanted to hurt Jorgenson for what he had done to him. But I'm sure that when O' Brien had his first combat fight, he had frozen up just as Jorgenson had done. And O' Brien wasn't the one who had to go risk his life to go save the lives of the wounded. That courage comes with experience and Jorgenson just didn't have that experience yet.

Both Kinds

The 3 chapters from "Speaking of Courage" to "In the Field" all include some type of both internal and external conflict. The external conflict is that the soldiers ended up in the shit field and began taking mortar fire from everywhere and this is what caused the death of Kiowa. The internal conflict is what happened mainly after the war was over when Norman Bowker got home. He had to deal with what had happenned that night on the shit field and how he had to let Kiowa go and sink into the so-called land. Years after the war he had to deal with all of this internally. O' Brien is able to incorporate both of these very well into these chapters. I'm not sure if this is what he intended to happen, but to me, it represents all the soldiers had to go through before, and even after the war. For them, there was no escape.

Why Can't He tell?

After reading the chapter "Speaking of Courage" and a few of the chapters following that, I am still a little confused on why Norman Bowker just couldn't tell anyone about what happened that night on the shit field in Vietnam. He goes throughout the whole chapter imagining what his dad would say to his story or how a girl would react to his story. The dialogue would go like this: " 'Well anyway,' the old man would've said, 'there's still the seven medals.' " But why can't he tell them? He as that story bottled up inside of him for so long, and it probably is something that contributed to his suicide. If there is a deeper meaning in this story about Bowker than I don't understand it. I know he gives a reason to why he doesn't tell the different people. There has to be someone, however, that he would be able to tell.

Bits and pieces

O' Brien did not write this book as just one continual story that followed a specific timeline. It's written in many miny stories as I have mentioned in previous blogs. Becuase of this, O' Brien tends to reiterate parts of stories he had already talked about. But also what he will do is foreshadow events that he will eventually come to. For example, on page 37, he says, "A slim, dead, dainty young man of about twenty. Kiowa saying, 'No choice, Tim. What else could oyu do?' Kiowa saying, 'Right?' Kiowa saying, 'Talk to me.' " This gives the impression that maybe Tim killed a man but I was never too sure. Then this was affirmed in the chapter "The Man I Killed." In this chapter he goes into detail about how he killed the man and how he felt about it after. I like how O' Brien foreshadowed because it goes along with what he was explaning at the time and it also keeps you wanting to know what was really going on when Kiowa was talking to him.

Still civilized

I really like the chapter 'Church". When men go to war, many visualize them becoming savages and just becoming killing machines. In some cases this may be true. However, I like how this chapter represents how then men do not become like this. While the men are camped in a church with two monks, they treat the monks as human beings and not as just animals who live in Vietnam. " 'You're right,' he said. 'All you can do is be nice. Treat them decent, you know?' " While being in Vietnam for such a long time, they still know how to be civilized human beings and not just animals.

Very dynamic

After reading the chapter "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong", I came across reading about a character who is about as dynamic as it gets. Her name is Mary Anne and she is a girlfriend of a soldier who works at a emergency care place for the wounded. He smuggled her to Vietnam so they could be together, and ther changes that she goes through are enormous. When she arrives, she is an innocent, curious girl who has lived in a civilized society all her life. However, by the end of the chapter, she turns into a girl that is described as this: "At the girl's throat was a necklace of human tongues." To me, this is enough to show how dynamic of a character she is. I think the way the author uses this, however, is very effective. He is able to display how easily Vietnam can change a person from being civilized to almost an animal. In just 3 weeks, that is what she became.

The bad guy?

So far I've gotten to page 100 of the novel and I haven't been able to clearly identify the antagonist of the story. Some would be quick to point out at that the antagonist of the story would be the country of Vietnam itself. However, I do not find this to be true. While Vietnam and its army were what the American soldiers were fighting and the place itself is what caused the misery and death of several, I find the position of the antogonist to lie in another. I think that its the men themselves. Some of the men drive themselves crazy even when there is no danger in what they think is dangerous. For example, in the chapter "Enemies", the man who beats the other soldier's nose in starts to get paraniod about the guy when he comes back thinking that he is going to want revenge. His imagination and mind is what starts to drive him crazy until he finally breaks. At the end of the chapter, we find out that the other guy did not want to seek revenge in the first place. So one of the main things that the soldiers had to worry about was simply themselves.

The land is alive

Kind of backtracking a little bit, I remember O' Brien telling a story about how when I group of men went into the jungle of Vietnam and sat disguised in one spot for while. After some time, they started hearing some crazy things that sounded like a banquet in the middle of the forest. To me, this seemed like an anthropomorphism because there seem to be human-like characteristics to the land of Vietnam. This is very effective when used by the author because when he starts talking about how the land is alive, the reader begins to think how this is one of those not so true war stories, but with that deeper meaning. The story becomes to be a little far fetched and that becomes to be true when the guy telling the story goes to O'Briend and tells him how he had to make a few things up. What the guy says is on page 71: "They just lie there and groove, but after a while they start hearing...they hear chamber music...not human voices, though. Vecause it's the mountains. Follow me? The rock--it's talking."

Matters only to yourself

On pages 82-84 in the chapter "The Dentist", Curt Lemon is a soldier who when the dentist comes to check the teeth of the soldiers. However, he explains his fear of dentists and how he's always been so scared of them. Becuase of this, when he goes in to get his teeth checked, he faints right before the dentist even touches him. Because he was a guy and all guys do this, he got extremely embarrassed and he just kept to himself. However, I doubt anyone else in the group even cared at all that he fainted. Lemon also probably didn't care what the others thought of him, he was just embarrassed for himself, ashamed of himself. So when he went that night to get a perfectly good tooth removed, he didn't go brag to the others of what he had done. He did it and was then happy about it so he would no longer be ashamed of himself. This is what O' Brien recognized as true courage I think. As in the moral of "On a Rainy River", to be courageous is to do what you believe you should do, not what others try to make you do through embarrassment, no matter what they think you should do.

Parable

O'Brien makes out this book to be a bunch of parables, or short stories, in one. For the most part, every chapter is its own seperate story that somehow connects to the central character O' Brien. However, do these short stories have a moral? On page 74, O' Brien talks about the moral and goes on to say: "In a true war story, if ther's a moral at all, it's like the thread that makes the cloth. You can't tease it out. You can't extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper menaing. And in the end, really, ther's nothing much to say about a true war story , except maybe 'Oh.'." So is O' Brien saying that theres no way of finding out the moral of the story if there is one? This passage confused me becuase I'm not sure if he's saying whether or not a true war story has a moral. In the chapter "On a Rainy River", to me the moral of the story was that being a coward is doing what other people influence you to do and not want you want to do. But maybe O'Brien is saying there is a deeper meaning that that, I'm not sure.

What's its purpose?

After reading the chapters "Enemies" and "Friends", I'm not really sure what their purpose in this book was. Maybe I do not know the ultimate reason for O' Brien writing this book yet, but they just seemed a little random. A guess that I have is that it really shows how the Vietnam war just made people a little cookoo and that just made them do crazy things. For example, when Strunk broke his own nose so that him and Jensen were even, (even when to Jensen they pretty much were) that just seemed a little on the crazy side. The war makes the people paranoid about everything. When you get paranoid about someone in your own troop, however, I'm sure that's just going to make that person a little insane. So maybe O' Brien put these 2 chapters in there to show how psychologically straining the war could be. But I am still uncertain.

Coward?

In the chapter "On the Rainy River", I thought it was very interesting how O' Brien found himself to be a coward. But while reading the chapter, he finds himslef to be a coward for another reason than expected. In this chapter he runs away and drives north toward Canada becuase he has been drafted for the war. However, while staying at these cabins on a river bordering Canada, he realizes that he can't go to Canada so he decides to go back home and go to the war. O' Brien does not label himself a coward for trying to escape. Instead, he labels himself a coward because he can't get himself to jump off the boat and swim to Canada. For him, going back home and going to Vietnam was the cowardly thing to do. At first this seems a little odd, but I can see the reasoning that O' Brien put behind this. Simply being embarrassed of not going to the war because of what people thought of him is what made him a coward. Being courageous would have meant him doing what HE thought was right.

Checkers

In chapter 3 "Spin", I like the little side story about how 2 soldiers would play checkers every evening when it turned dark. The author explains on page 31, "There was something restful about it, something orderely and reassuring...the pieces were out on the board, the enemy wass visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies. There was a winner and a loser. There were rules." I really like this passage becuase it is a great metaphor for how the Vietnam war is not. The war that they were fighting was pretty much an all out guerrila war through a thick jungle and the Americans were far outnumbered, and their more advanced weapons did not help them much. The game of checkers was completely the opposite where there was an organized manner to things. Another thing that stuck out was the phrase: there was a winner and a loser. In the war, neither of the sides seemed to be winning the war and thats what probably what drove a lot of the soldiers crazy.

Back and Forth

The Plot of the Things They Carried does not follow a timelined sequence of events. The author, instead jumps around from the time during the war to the time after the war, to the time before the war. In terms of time, there is no order of things. However, what I do beleive the author follows is a progression of what he wants to get across in this novel. He has an organized progression of ideas that are unparallel to a timed sequence of events. For example, the book begins by describing what the soldiers carried during the war. The next chapter, however, goes on to describe the meeting of two characters after the war and two chapter after that, the author talks about himself when he got drafted during the war. So while the the plot does have a series of related events, the author finds it unecessary to follow a specific timeling in order to get his point across.

Even More Personal

Similarily to The Sun Also Rises, Tim O' Brien uses first person point of view. However, the way he uses it is a whole world different than the way Ernest Hemingway uses it. In the Things they carried, O' Brien is the acutal character taking place in the story. His name is used when others refer to him and this makes the story feel even more personal. Since O 'Brien was actually in the war and witnessed these things himself, it gives the reader a sense of ethos. The reader knows, as I did, that O' Brien means everything he says with all sincerity. However, why would this book be in fiction? While it has the qualites of a fiction book, it also has the qualities of a documentary. So is it true that the central character is in face O' Brien?

The things they carried.

I am now beginning my second book the things they carried. As I read into it, I am realizing that the setup of this book is extremely different than that of The Sun Also Rises. The first chapter begins with the author describing the soldiers and he especially likes to describe the items that they carried and the weight. I'm not really sure what what purpose this has. However, its purpose could be to truly show the reader the burdens of the men in Vietnam. Also, I was curious when I came across the part when the author described humping. He described it was walking or marching and also to hump something was to carry it. Is that really how the word is used or is it used as humor?

The sun also Rises: final blog

This book seemed so pointless. It talked about a man's struggle having to deal with wanting something he knew he absolutely could not have. But as the book progressed, the central conflict concerning Jake's wound seemed to fade away and any other conflict that occured was just a little conflicts concerning the people around him. There seemed to be no plot or anything. However, while this is true, this book did have a few positives. The author was able to bring emotion out of me by either extremely hating or liking a person. Portions of the story made me laugh and the dialogue was much different than other novels that I have read, but I still liked its quickness and choppiness. But my final question is, are all Hemingway books like this?

Maybe there is a reason...

At the end of chapter 17, book 3 starts to begin the final chapter of The Sun Also Rises. At first, once again, it seems pointless to begin a new book, especially one at the very end of the novel. But when I looked into it, I feel certain that I found a reason for beginning new books. As a predicted in a previous blog, Hemingway starts a new book every time Brett goes away from Jake. However, the reason for having new books every time this happens still remains unclear. Maybe the new book represents a new stage in his life where he has to go on without Brett, and each time, he doesn't seem to need Brett as much. The reason I think this is because in book one, Jake is always the first to tell Brett that he loves her. Also, book one is the only book that has the two kissing and it's also the one where he becomes preoccupied by Bretts actions. In book two, Jake seems to be able to grow a little away from her becuase they never kiss in this book and he rarely tells her that he loves her. In book 3, he stays in Spain by himself and not once does he think about Brett until the very end when he gets the telegram from Brett telling him to come to Madrid.

Big difference

Jake and Robert are both in love with Brett. However, the way that they handle this love is very different. Jake is very calm, and one might say a pushover, when it comes to loving Brett. He doesn't stare at her continuously as Cohn does and he gives her her space. Cohn on the other hand is different. He seems to be obsessed about her as he thought the time in San Sebastian was something special while Brett thinks otherwise. Also a big difference is when they both find out about Pedro Romero and Brett. When Brett expresses how she loves Romero to Jake on page 187 by saying: "I'm a goner. I'm mad about the Romero boy. I'm in love with him, I think." All Jake does when she tells him this is to not be in love with him and how it's a bad idea, but when she persists, he caves in. However, when Cohn figures it out and walks in on Brett and Romero together, he proceeds to beating Romero up. What I think influences how these two act with her is how she feels about each person. To Jake, she tells him repeatedly how she loves him and hoes to him for advice. Because of this, this causes Jake to not have any sore feeling around her. But with Cohn, Brett does not love him and she gets very tired of him and this is what makes Cohn bitter. He knows that he can't get her.

We know it's coming

As we all know, Brett isn't shy when it comes to men. Pretty much everyone in the group knows that she has had affairs with many different men. However, it is easy to tell that she is soon going to fall for another. On page 169, she begins to talk about the bullfighter Pedro Romero. Brett says, "Oh, isn't he [Romero] lovely. And those green trousers." Mike then replies by saying how she never took her eyes off of them. Since she seems to "fall in love" easily, one would think that she will become interested, and sure enough she does. In chapter 16, she tells Jake how she has fallen in love with Romero. The way the author foreshadows this is very effective. He only has her make a remark or two about Romero, but from that, you get the hint that she is goint to start liking him too.

Cohn's downfall

After reading Mike go off on Cohn in chapter 13 about Cohn not being wanted, I get the feeling that Cohn is not going to be having a good time in Spain. Everyone seems to be turning against him. On page 146, Mike starts to go off about how he follows Brett around and won't stop looking at her. Things that he said include: "Tell me Robert. Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer? Don't you know you're not wanted? I know when I'm not wanted..." While Mike is going off on Robert, Jake does nothing to stop Mike from doing. If anything, I think that he was enjoying it because he probably isn't too happy about Cohn going off to San Sebastion with her either. Brett later also says how Cohn behaves badly by always following her around and staring at her. Also, Bill easily gets annoyed by Cohn. Cohn is going to be the person of the group that no one is going to want around or anything. I have a feeling that something bad will probably happen.

Old Billy

In my opinion, there are very few normal people in this novel. One of these is the central character Jake who at least thinks moderately straight. The other is his newly introduced friend Bill. Bill is the comedian of this novel. When with Jake, he's very comedical and will go off on random rants about anything he can think of. He is very articulate. When they are along fishing in Spain, Billy and Jake seem to have a really good time together that Jake and Cohn never seemed to have. This kind of represents how Jake never really wanted to get close to Cohn. Also, to me, Cohn became very annoying in the novel when he whined and got mad at everybody. However, Bill seems to be an easy going guy, who enjoys to get mad at Cohn because no one likes him, and is easily my favorite character. One passage that really made me laugh was on page 121 when Bill went on about Abraham Lincoln being "a faggot" and many other people were also included in this rant.

Wine, wine, and more wine (and some food)

I know that it is very obvious that the characters in this book drink as if there were no tomorrow. But because of how much wine and alcohol is mentioned in this book, I thought that it would be a good idea to dedicate a post to it. One thing that I am confused about is whether or not that alcohol really is such a big part of Europe's culture. The characters of the book will go and drink at a bar, then go eat at a restaurant, then go drink at a few more bars, then eat again, and so on. It seems as if their only purpose in life were to drink, and this would mean that the characters in this book are supposed to have no purpose. For example, at the end of chapter of 11 on page 116, Jake and Bill are getting a hotel and the Jake believes that the price to stay there is too high. But then he asks, "Is the wine included?" And she replies, "Oh, yes." And because of this, Jake decides to stay at the hotel. I'm sure that he'll get his money's worth of wine.

Very Descriptive

The term local color is a term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape. Hemingway does this very much. In his descriptions of Paris and the trip through Spain, he gets into very much detail about even the street names that Jake travels through. For example, in chapter 10 on page 99, a passage describes this term very well: "After a while we came out of the mountains, and there were trees along both sides of the road, and a stream and ripe fields of grain, and the road went on, very white and straight ahead...." This is only a small example of Hemingway's descriptiveness. However I think the purpose of this is to attempt to immerse the reader in the environment that Hemingway describes. For me, it got a little too descriptive. Because of this, I started to get lost making me not able to become immersed in the environment described. So for me, this style was a little ineffective.

metaphor in my opinion

In chapter 10, I believe that Hemingway was using a metaphor that reflected the relationship between Jake and Brett. The passage starts page 98 and says: "You couldn't see the sea. It was too far away. You could see only hills and more hills, and you knew where the sea was." This describes perfectly the relationship of the two and is, therefore, very effective. With Jake, Brett is present much of the book with him. However, it is impossible for him to get physically and emotionally close to him becuase of his wound and she pushes him off every time that he tries. This resemble the metaphor of the hills and the sea. All the hills, which were the only things he could see, represent all the pain and difficulty he has to go through without truly being able to be with Brett, which represents the sea. This could be a stretch, but this was the first thing that went through my mind when I read this passage.

Very Static

While not certain if Jake Barnes would ever stand up to Brett and tell her not to be with other men, chapter 9 proves that Jake is a very static character. When Brett tells Jake about how she was in San Sebastion with his friend Robert, he seems as if he doesn't care but we all know that he is very hurt by it. His reply on page 89 to Brett telling him about her and Cohn is only, "Congratulations." Instead of showing anger, he still appears to be kind of a pushover when it comes to Brett being with other men. In my opinion, Jake needs to tell Brett how he feels about all of this, and not just stop whenever he knows that she feels insulted. Instead, he will just apologize and act as if there is nothing wrong with what Brett is doing in which we all know that there is something wrong with it. I think the purpose of Jake being a static character is to keep the mysteriousness between Jake and Brett going. Also, another thing I found interesting is that Jake never directly thinks about how Brett is making the wrong decisions.

Why separate books?

As I had just said in my previous blog, I have finished reading book 1. However, while I was reading further, I am confused to why there are separate books. The story seems to take off exactly where it had left off in the previous book and it seems very pointless to have this. But at the same time, the author would not seperate this story into different books for no reason. There must be something behind it I believe. As I look into it, the location does not change so locations is most likely not a reason that there is a separate book. The characters stay the same and the central character remains Jake so a shift in characters is not a reason for the new book. However, one thing that I did notice is that Brett left Jake at the very end of book 1. On page 63, Brett says to Jake, "Oh don't be a fool. I am going away to-morrow." And her leave is confirmed in book 2 because the very first sentence of book 2 is "I did not see Brett again until she came back from San Sebastion." So maybe this might have something to do with it but I'm not sure.

Plot or no Plot? That is the question

I have just finished reading book 1 and so far this book has a plot much different than that of other books. Ordinary books have a story line in which conflict rises and rises throughout the story and there is usually purpose in the story. However, with The Sun Also Rises, there seems to be very little purpose. The central conflict seems to be Jake's wound and his relationship with Brett, but that is about it. He just goes through life and meets up with friends and drinks as if there was no tomorrow. Moreover, there is no rising action as other books traditionally have. No other complications in conflict occur because of his wound. It just seems to be continuous pain for Jake and his inability to be with Brett, but nothing more ever comes out of it. Jake never tries much to do anything about it either when he very much could. For example, when the count comes with Brett to Jake's hotel in chapter 7 on page 60, Brett offers to send the count away but he replies by saying, "No. He's nice." However, I think that the author wants to make it appear as if they have no true purpose in life.

Stream of Consciousness

I just came across a term that describes perfectly how the book is composed. Hemingway uses the writing style stream of consciousness for the central character Jake. So far throughout the book, we hear Jake' inner thoughts that portrays to us what kind of a person Jake is. For example, in chapter 5, Jake thinks 'God help you' about Cohn right after he gets mad at Jake for saying go to hell. But then he goes on to say "Forget what I said. I'm sorry." Knowing what Jake is thinking allows us to actually know what he thinks about a person. The dialogue alone would not be able to tell us this. By being able to read most of Jake's thoughts and compare it to his dialogue, we are able to figure out how Jake's mind works and this is a very effective way of analyzing Jake.

Neutral

It has become obvious that Jake Barnes is the central character of this novel and pretty much everything that happens revolves around him. But also, many people also come to talk to him and share their feelings with him. For example, in chapter 6 on page 53, Frances wants to talk with Jake about how Cohn wants to leave her. I think that many people like to talk to Jake because he primarily remains neutral between the conflict of two people. While Frances is talking about how Cohn wants to leave her, he never appears to take Cohns side or Frances side, he's just there to listen. However, I get the feeling that Jake is growing away from based on the thoughts and actions of Jake toward Cohn. For example, in chapter 5, Jake tells Cohn to go to hell and also think in his mind "God help him" toward Cohn. Because of his, I don't think that Jake will always be neutral towards Cohn.

Not so central

In my first post I described how I thought that Cohn and Jake would be the central characters of the novel. However, I think that I was wrong. While reading past the first 5 chapters, Cohn seems to drift away farther and farther into the background. In the first chapter it seemed as if this story was about him, but over the next few chapters, he seems to slowly transform into a character that doesn't seem that important anymore. He's just a character that is plainly just... there. For example, in all of chapter 4, Robert Cohn is not mentioned one. This is just very different from Chapter 1 when he seemed to be the main character of the book. I think the author did this on purpose and it has some meaning behind it but I have no idea what that would be.

Spoiler Alert!

Unfortunately, someone had already told me about Jake's wound before I had read the part the talked about it with Brett. Because of this, I will never know if I would have figured it out on my own. However, the reason that it would be difficult to realize about Jake's wound is becuase the author uses indirect characterization. Never once does the author directly describe Jake's wound. Instead, he gives little hints and clues about the incident. For example, on page 38, he is undressed looking in the mirror and thinks about how "of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny." The author will never say much more than this throughout the book. I am not certain what the reason is for this but it certainly does challenge the reader. However, this seems to be what Jake's conflict will revolve around. He is in love with Brett and she loves him too, but so far it appears that she will never permanently be with him because of his wound.

Cohn's conflict

From what I can see from the first few chapter, Robert Cohn is going to be a character who is consumed by internal conflict. In chapter 2 he seemed to be going through a midlife crisis and later on in the story, he falls in love with Brett but she does not love him back or even want him around. This is not going to make Robert Cohn a character who is well like by the reader. Instead, this is only going to make him annoying to the characters and the audience. Another thing about Cohn's internal conflict is that he lets his preoccupations affect the people around him. For example, in chapter 2 on page 17-18, he wants to drag Jake along to South America with him for reasons such as that Jake speaks fluent spanish. Cohn's problems are only going to push his friends away from him.

Is she who I think she is?

Chapter 3 brought about confusion to me. Jake was just sitting by himself at a restaurant and it says in the first paragraph of page 22 how he caught the eye of a girl and just simply by that she came down and sat with him as if they had known each other and this meeting was planned. However, after a while, I get the feeling that she may be a prostitute. Also, when she asks if Jake is sick and then she tells him that she herself is sick, I wasn't sure if they were talking about a simple cold or maybe a STD. I may be way off but this is just what came into my mind when I read through this chapter. I am also confused why Jake calls her his fiancee when he introduces her to his friends. My guess is that fiancee is not used the same way I am familiar with. For this book, I am going to read it without sparknotes so there are probably going to be many times where I am confused.

Short and Quick

The style used in The Sun Also Rises is much different than other books I have read. First of all the dialogue between the characters is very short and quick most of the time. For me, it seems very choppy when read through quickly. So far the tone of this story has neither been happy nor sad. Instead, its been very ponderous with limited conflict. Cohn has also appeared to be a troubled man who is going through personal problems that resemble a mid-life crisis. Back to the subject of the diction and dialogue, the quick and choppy dialogue between the characters could symbolize how life goes by quick. This was also something that had been troubling Robert Cohn in chapter two when he wanted to travel to Spain. But an example of this choppy dialogue can be found on pages 19 through 21 with the conversation between Robert Cohn and Jake. Personally I like this dialogue because it moves through the book quicker and simpler.

Who's story?

This first chapter of The Sun Also Rises begins describing the life of Robert Cohn who is an American living in Paris. However, this story is told in the First Person point of view. Because of this, I am thinking that this story will focus mainly around two characters who are friends. The character telling the story is named Jake Barnes, and he is the friend of Cohn. However, I am not certain that they are too great of friends becuase Jake only describes themselves as tennis friends. This gives the impression that while Jake is fond of Robert Cohn, he does no sincerely want to be his best friend. This can be found at the end of the second paragraph on page 13 when Jake describes Robert's two friends. Based on reading the summary of the book, I am thinking that the story will focus on their travels together through Europe. However, this chapter does not talk much about any other third parties other than Frances who is Cohn's wife who wants to marry Cohn.