poems

The poem “Hope” by Lisel Mueller was unique and because of this I didn’t like it. I didn’t really find this poem appealing. It might be because I didn’t fully understand the poem or maybe because I didn’t get the Hope in the poem at all. I do admit that the poem dose has form and a rhyme to it. But only because it flows doesn’t mean I understand it or like it. It talks about natural of hope such as the fluttering seeds (“angles”) of maple trees lines 7 and 8 and the live such as the child that has just been born in line 16. The connect? I don’t know really. To me this poem is really confusing. The ending is kind of funny as well  “it is in this poem, trying to speak.” What is trying to speak? The poem to me didn’t make any sense.

In the other hand I really did like the poem “Sir Patrick Spens.” I like this poem because I actually understand it and it had a story to tell. A sad story because Sir Patrick Spens dies at the end but the way and the tone of the poem makes the poem enjoyable to read. The form of the poem it real organizes with 5 lines in each block. It also had a rhyme scheme, which rhymed.

These both poems are very different of each other. One is that “Sir Patrick Spens” is a telling of a story and the “Hope” poem is a since of hope. They are both about the same in length and they both have a good rhyme and flow to. But I did like one better than the other. 

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Evil?

Just want to say that yes Claudius is evil. Purely evil, umm I don’t know, I’m leaning more on yes than no right at this moment. And it's because everything that happen in the story happen because Claudius was greedy and selfish. All of the actions in this play were tragedies because of him. He did them because they benefit him and only himself. For example he try to kill Hamlet because he know that he was the one who killed his father hamlet Senior, the king. When the plan did not went as plan, he told Laertes to help him. Laertes agrees because Hamlet killed Polonius by mistake. Hamlet killed Polonius thinking he was Claudius. So Claudius tried to send Hamlet to England where he was going to died for sure. So that’s when Laertes came in the picture.  Which Laertes fights Hamlet with a poisonous sword that Claudius design, he gets himself killed. So now Laertes is death as well. Just in case the poisonous sword didn’t kill Hamlet, Claudius puts poison in a cup made for him to drink and die. But of course Hamlet doesn’t drink it, but guess whom? Yes the beautiful wife, who indeed was one of the reasons Claudius, kills the king in the first place! Funny huh! My point is that all of this happens because Claudius didn’t want his secret to be revealed. Oh and I forget to moment that In the middle of all of this Ophelia found outs that Polonius had died, she goes insane and commits suicide. Great everyone is death, beside one person. So that is the only I am leaning towards yes he is “purely” evil. “Purely” and not just evil is because he had back up plan like crazy… England, drink, fight, and sword, are way to any for just an evil man.

I only found two links that really didn’t support my theory.  The first one I found that Claudius being not “purely” evil was when he admits, “Oh, my offence is rank…It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t. A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,” and  “Forgive my foul murder” and “My stronger guild defeats my strong intent,” all on page 1411 about him killing his brother, the king, Hamlet senior, Hamlet father etc.

The second one was when Ophelia goes insane because she found out that Polonius had died. Claudius asks Gertrude to follow her on page 1425, “Follow her close, give her good watch I pray you.” To me when he said “I pray to you,” I guess it shows that he cares and that he really wasn’t evil. Beside these two, he is “purely” evil to me. 

Hamlet

In William Shakespeare story, “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” Hamlet goes home to see that his father has passed away while he out studying in a school far away. Not only that, but he also comes home to see that its only been a while that his father has died and his mother has remarried. His mother didn’t marry any men either; his mother married his father’s brother, Claudius.

“That it should come to this, but two months dead, nay not so much, not two… within a month, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married. O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets; it is not, nor it cannot come to good, but break my heart, for I must hold my tongue”(1364).

Hamlet has a reason to be mad at his mother. The fact that his mother remarries so fast and that the person she decides to marry is his uncle. Someone who he dose not like and dose not care much about him. Hamlet goes insane or ill because his fathers dead has a big impact in his life and so far is the only one that cares that he has died. Hamlet also finds out Ophelia, his lovely sister has been buried, and he begins to lose his mind. Anyone one round him is happy at that the fact that his mother the queen got remarried to someone else. Not only that but when his father died he has the position to become king. But now that Claudius has married his mother he took that him hamlet. People around him notice that he has become ill or insane by the dilemma that he is facing. I believe that he has becomes confuse about the whole thing. He doesn’t know what to do. His father ghost to kill Claudius hunts him. But hamlet never killed anyone and doesn’t want to kill anymore but by his father ghost who keeps on telling him to kill.

The fathers ghost tell hamlet: “but that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy youth blood… revenge his foul and most unnatural murder (1373). The father ghost asking to have avenged. Hamlet wants to make sure that the ghost is telling him the truth and so he dose a play which Claudius will see, to see the reaction on his face to know rather he killed his father or not. Hamlet will re-reenact the story of his father murder, by poison. 

Love?

Love plays a prominent role in the story by Chekov.  "The Lady with the Dog" is perhaps Chekhov's best known and certainly one of his best-loved stories. Chekov shows that Dmitri is feeling when he sees that lady with the dog. The emotional on first seeing Anna at the theater in her hometown, Chekhov expresses Dmitri's romantic yearning with the passage: "she, this little woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lornette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy … He thought and dreamed." That might not be love at first sight, but Dmitri dose notices her.

Although the Dmitri mocks women and calls them "the lower race," he knows that he is more at ease in their company than in men's. One day "the lady with the dog” goes to a Public garden to eat and ends up sitting next to Dmitri. He pets the dog in order to strike up a conversation. He learns that she is called Anna Sergeyevna, that she is married, and that she has come to Yalta on vacation.

This is a love story but it’s not one of those in which they end in a happy ending where every fairytale does. Dmitri is marrying too and later in the story Dmitri and Anna have an affair. When Dmitri meets Anna he can tell that she has trace of sadness in her. Dmitri fools around with a lot of different women. He thought that Anna was going to be one more lady on his list. He doesn’t care for the women he is with. But when Anna left back to her husband he felt sad. He was still thinking about her well after she was gone. That had never happen to him. This is the part where Dmitri really and for the first time feels love. He remembers every evening the couples observes the sunset from the vantage point over Yalta at Oreanda and are impressed anew by the "beautiful and majestic" scenery. The story ends with Anna coming back to see Dmitri time to time and Dmitri and Anna fall in love. But they both know that they are doing wrong. However they come to visit each other and continue the affair.

Irony Sad

“The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs. In the figure of speech, emphasis is placed on the opposition between the literal and intended meaning of a statement or story.” (definition).
In the short story “The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, describes the emotions of Louise Mallard experiences after hearing of the death of her husband, who was considered to die in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard has heart problems and for that reason her sister tries to inform her of the awful news in a gentle way. After hearing the awful news she locks herself in her room to grieve for her husband. While she was sobbing, she looked out of her window and realized how beautiful the outside was. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves (338).” She realized that she was free from her husband and a delight of her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard told Josephine to "Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.” That’s when Louise’s overjoyed started, when she first murmurs, “"Free! Body and soul free!" to herself (338). Irony she goes out to her of her room to find her husband coming in the front door. She drops dead from a heart attack. This story is a perfect example of dramatic irony. “Irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play.” (Definition). We know what cause her heart attack, which was the appearance of her husband back in her live. Josephine, Richards (her husband friend), and of course her husband thought it was the joy of having her husband back.

In the story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe is a tragic irony that can also be a type of dramatic irony. In tragic irony, a character's actions lead to significances that are both tragic, and contrary to the character's desire and intentions. Poe’s tales are known to have a lack of evidence that convoys with Montresor’s claims to Fortunato’s “thousand injuries” and “insult.” This story contains revenge and a secret murder that Montresor kept over 50 years without putting his vengeance out there. Montresor, tells us from the beginning of the story that he has been irreparably insulted by one of his ally, Fortunato, and that he pursues for his desire for retaliation. He also tells us that Fortunato affection for wine. He tells Fortunato that he has attained something that could pass for “Amontillado, a light Spanish sherry.” Fortunato is anxious to taste the wine and go to Montresor’s vaults to determine whether or not it is truly Amontillado. Montresor tells Fortunato, who has a bad cough, of the damp, and implies they go back. One iron part of this story is when Fortunato persists on continuing, claiming that he  “shall not die of a cough, (526)” Montresor replies, “True,” because he knows that Fortunato will in fact die from dehydration and starvation in the crypt. Thought out the catacombs, Montresor offers wine, irony he choose “De Grave” (name of the wine), to give to Fortunato. Montresor walks up to the niche, where he intends to bury alive Fortunato by immurement. “Immurement is a form of execution where a person is walled up within a building and left to die from starvation or dehydration. This is distinct from being buried alive, in which the victim typically dies of asphyxiation” (definition). Montresor ends the story by saying, “In pace requiescat!” which means "May he rest in peace!"

In both stories have a sense of irony in them; whether it is a tragic irony or dramatic irony. 

The Yellow Wallpaper! (blog 2)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman Perkins, is a story in which the narrator writes to herself.  Gilman told her story in first-person narration, coverage events from inside the narrator’s head. In this story Gilman is a new mother suffering from what we might today call 'post-partum depression,' is diagnosed with a nervous disorder. Her physician husband, John, have rented a mansion for the summer so that she can recover from a “slight hysterical tendency.” Although the narrator does not believe that she is actually ill, John is persuaded that she is suffering from “neurasthenia” and recommends the “rest cure” treatment.

The narrator is reflected an unreliable narrator since the story is told only from her point of view in a sequence of secretly written journal entries. The narrator is an example of an unreliable narrator.  We only see the events through her writing. She is constricted to bed rest in a former nursery room and is forbidden from working or writing. She is forced to become absolutely passive, prohibited from exercising her mind in any way. Writing is especially off limits, and John advises her numerous times that she must use her self-control to rein in her imagination, which he fears will run away with her. She is keeping a secret journal, which she describes, more than once as a “relief” to her mind.

With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the wallpaper, “It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. (571).” And the way she express herself in great details like this, “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.  It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide--plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions. The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight (566).” The narrator hates the wallpaper, but John refuses to change rooms, arguing that the nursery is best suited for her recovery.

The reliability of the narrator relies during the course of the story to the narrator’s condition. Gilman knows that she is not well and this makes her reliable. Later, she says, John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. “I am glad my case is not serious,” at a point when it is clear that she is concerned that her case is very serious indeed. “But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness  (566).”

More days’ pass, the narrator grows more and more anxious and depressed. The wallpaper keeps her only stimulation, and she spends the larger part of her time studying its confusing patterns. Her reliability fades when she says, “ It creeps all over the house. I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. It gets into my hair. Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it--there is that smell! 
Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like. It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me. It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house--to reach the smell. But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell (571).” She also begins to notice that the distinct "yellow smell" of the wallpaper has spread over the house, following her even when she goes for rides.

This is specific example indicate that the narrator’s version might not accurately reflect the events in the story, “Of course I never mention it to them any more--I am too wise… There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will…and it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder--I begin to think--I wish John would take me away from here! (569)” The narrator creates the appearance that she is mentally strange. She talks about how she locked herself in the room and trown away the key for no one to go in or out. She tried to move her bed to help her peel the wallparer off, which did not move. so then she got so angry that she bit off a little piece at one corner of her bed which made her teeth hurt. All of this for a wallpaper that she did not like. 

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