sonett fun

I thought it was so cool when we went back through the sonnet "When my love swears that she is made of truth" and found how differently it could be interpreted. Sonnets are so functional, they are like little math problems that you have to correctly formulate to "equal" exactly what you want it to mean. But at the same they are like secret riddles that you have to uncode to find the true meaning. I wonder if writers of sonnets intentionally pick these words to have both meanings, I'm sure they do, but still. I feel like every time i read a poem now I'm going to have to have a dictionary next to me so i can look up every word and find the many different meanings it has. Maybe all writers use this. It would be interesting to go through the sound and the fury and see if there is any "uncoding" to do. I'm competing in Poetry Out loud and thought it would be fun to see if my poem has any hidden meanings. http://poetryoutloud.org/poem/171246 <-- my poem didn't really have as awesome of a turn out as the sonnet in class did. But looking up each word did help me understand my poem more and had me look at it in a different way than i normally would. Writers of poems especially have to pick words very economically to get their point across because unlike writers of novels, they are focusing on one particular event or emotion, so being precise is very important. Knowing this has made reading and understanding poetry much easier and even a little more fun :)

dont hate me

Everything in literature is subjective. As students we are (rarely) taught that literature, like art, is all about how the one viewing it perceives it. For example, one person could read a book and get one meaning out of it, while another could think it meant something completely different. Neither of these readers are wrong, in fact, they are both very right. Writers are artists, they write to help people understand life better. Viewers of art (although unaware) always add their own subjective feelings to art based on events they are experiencing at that time. Reading The Sound and the Fury got me thinking, and i don't understand why we are searching for what Faulkner meant it as. That's not its purpose. The purpose of the book, or any book, is to simply read it- take it for what it is to YOU- THE READER. I think i talk about this subject a lot, just because I'm very passionate about it (and a little rebellious). Also, on a side note, writing and reading is supposed to help one relax, which is why i have never understood why so much stress is added with classes such as literature. Like right now, writing this is helping me relax. That's what literature is for. Its a way to express yourself, reading or writing. To help you understand or accept this world we all live in. And that is all i have to say.

The Memory Keepers Daughter

I highly reccomend The Memory Keepers Daughter for anyone looking for a good read, but i do not see it fit for an AP level novel. Most books we read in school always have some deeper meaning than whats on the surfact and involve motifs, symbols, and other literary devices, and none of that is seen throughout The Memory Keepers Daughter. This book is simply just the story given to the reader, atleast, i didnt see any other significance to it. There were no elements that really repeated themselves. As much as i would love to read books like this in school, there isnt really much you could do with it. Theres no hidden message or depth to it. Just a trdgic story of a father giving up his daughter for selfish reasons and how this choice of his effects everyone.

My view on Poetry

That article we read in class by Helen just did not seem to sit right with me. I don't disagree with everything she had to say, but i do have my own very strong opinions about poetry, and all other types of art. Poetry, like all other types of literature is meant to evoke feeling within the reader. I do not believe it is necessary to know background information on what/how/when/who about the piece of literature, i simply believe that one should just read it, and take whatever he or she gets from it and let it be. For example, when you look at the sky, i mean really look at it, so many different feelings can occur depending on the person looking at it. One might begin to feel hopeful, that there is something more than whats on the surface. Another might feel depressed because theres no end. My point is that in art, literature, or every day life we experience things without knowing what/how/when/who about anything and we learn from them. Sometimes things are meant to just be how they are. Everything in literature is subjective to the reader. That's why its called art. It helps one grasp a better understanding on life.

Awaken to the Awakening

Okay so in class i feel like everyone believes that Edna intentionally committed suicide, but i just don't see how that can be. My interpretation of the end was that Edna went out to the beach just like every other time, because this is where she felt most free. I do however believe that this particular time Edna goes to the beach is more 'freeing' than the others. This could be due to the fact that she strips naked. Anyways, as Edna is walking down to the beach Chopin keeps on saying how nothing was really on her mind. No problems or worries that she had before were existent, she was simply just enjoying the freeing experience. As she proceeds into the water, i felt as if she became a part of the ocean- she was just going with the flow. As she goes deeper, i think she comes to the realization that she will not make it back but instead of freaking out (like most would) she accepts what is happening and lets the ocean over take her. I do not believe this was Edna's decision, it was all natures. Nature knew that Edna did not belong in that society and that there was nothing she could do about it, being in the ocean is where she belonged, and the ocean decided to take fate into its own hands.

reading the poem "On the Subway" inspired me to write a poem. so here it goes...

All of these moments I see before me
was i ever there?
like a seed gasping for life
I have not been given the chance
so i lay
waiting, living
until my water comes
for the sprout
for the moment
I'll grow
so far no one can reach it
or maybe ive been living in the clouds all along
maybe this dream will only ever be a dream
maybe my day has come and gone
i missed it
forever living thirsty
never tasting the fruit
never taking the chance
is it fear?
or am i dreaming?

Is Winesburg, Ohio a novel?

This questoin came up in class and i really liked it. Obviously, its placed in the novel section at barnes and noble's but does it actually have the qualitites of a novel? Some people were saying that its not because none of the stories within it had anything to do with eachother. Sure, they involved the same characters and elements, but they didnt really relate. Personally, I would have to disagree. Winesburg, Ohio is a series of moments happening in life. Each one reflects a different time in life. Novels usually have a distinct begining, middle, and end, but even though this particular novel doesnt does not mean that everything that happens within the book doesnt have to do with one another. Moments in one persons life may not relate to one another but each moment brought that person where he/she is today. The stories that happen throughout this book may have came out much differently if the even that happened in the one before it came out differently. Also, the ending of Winesburg, Ohio might not have been the same if it wasnt for all the other moments that happened before it. Therefore, Winesburg, Ohio is infact a novel. Maybe not a conventional one, but it still is.

Just a little diddy...

Our recorded group discussion on Winesburg was actually...good. My group focused mainly on the story "Hands" just because there was so much to talk about. We were actually excited about our discussion, but unfortunatley some awesome parts were not recorded, like when we began discussing the meaning of Wing's hands and why they were so significant to the story. I found a quote that went something along the lines of "Wing you need to cut your hair, its covering up your eyes" and remembered that there are only two things on a humans body that NEVER change- the size of your eyes, and your hand print. This had me thinking that, if Wing had one of these things missing then the other must hold even more about him. Your handprint not only tells who you are but is said to indicate where you've been in life, what your past is (according to palm readers and such...) I thought that was interesting. Its amazing how in literature you can point out little things and make them reveal a hidden meaing, like its a game almost. And whats crazy is that something can mean something to you and than something completley different to somebody else. You never know what hidden messages you might find.

writers workshop

Hannah gave me a four. I would have to agree with her on this score though. Reading back over my essay after talking about certain things such as thesis, summarizing, and giving textual support, I am almost emberassed to say that i wrote this essay. I did have a clear thesis; however, the rest of my essay did not exactly hit on with the stated thesis. I could have used much more textual support (and a better understanding of the excerpt given). A major problem I tend to have in any given essay topic about a certain peice of literature is summarizing. I am the queen of summarization. For some reason I always think that the reader needs to know every little detail that happened in the excerpt stapled to the front of my essay. Also, reading others papers has made me realize that my vocabulary sucks. (see what i mean...i just used the word "sucks"). I dont really know what I could do to help that problem though. One last main thing that i think i could improve in my writing is gathering just a few ideas to write about in my paper. Usually when given an essay topic, thousands of ideas rush into my head, so i then try to put them all in my writing which makes my essay look unorganized. If i could learn to pick 2 to 3 ideas to focus on in my paper i feel like that would improve my writing immensley.

is there a such thing as over analyzing?

While doing our close reading on the end of chapter one in All the King's Men, me and Alexandra came across a passage talking about a cow's eyes staring waiting for someone to make a wrong move or fall into corruption. At first we didnt know what a cow could be symbolic for, then me, knowing all my bible stories remembered the parable of the golden calf. In the story, Moses is leading his people to the promise land but they start getting very cranky and impatient so they melt all their gold in a fire and when it is done melting it appears to be a golden cow. The people needed something to worship so they all begin praising this golden calf. Moses and God grow angry because these people should not be idolizing anything other than God himself. I thought that maybe the cow in All the Kings Men could have something to do with this parable, maybe the cow was meant to represent an idol. All the characters in the novel idolize power, which is what hurts them in the end. If they wouldve just focused on something else their endings may not have turned out the same. At first i felt super smart for thinking of such a relation, but then i realized...what if Warren didnt mean that at all? Could the meaning of a novel change because of  wrong analyzing? These are the things i ponder....

a whole new view on literature from yours truly....

The Socratic seminar really got me thinking about not only All the King's Men, but novels in general. I remember reading The Great Gatsby last year and talking about how important it is to decide if you trust the narrator or not because it could change the way you interpret the entire book. Then i tried relating this same theory to All the King's Men. What if Jack was just lying? What if everything he told us was only used to make everyone else look bad? What if this is the whole point of the book- how easily a person can just believe what they're told, just how it is with politics. Much of the novel is about the public believing everything Willie tells them, even though most of it turns out to be a lie or an exaggerated truth. What if that was the authors purpose in having Jack be the narrator? The author could just be trying to show us even more how easily peoples minds can be persuaded. I mean, lets face it...every time we pick up a book, we automatically believe what the narrator is telling us. Why? Because that's our instinct. We have no reason to not believe him or her yet. So we just give them our undivided attention and trust, without them even having to earn it. Which is what i believe is Robert Penn Warrens entire message in All the Kings Men. (or at least one of them)