Blog 8 Collins & Mueller Tina Radstone

I happened to be drawn to the poem "Schoolsville", by Billy Collins. I liked it because it was easy to read and the story was clear; I didn't have to read into it. The poem didn't have a rhyme scheme, but I found that to be alright. This poem doesn't have to rhyme in order the reader to understand what is going on. I felt that it was a little mini story of a teacher who reflects on his career and speaks negatively of the students that he has taught. Perhaps, Collins might be speaking about his own life. His negative description of the students gives the reader that some didn't care about his class and maybe some of the students didn't graduate. A great example of Collin's negativity is when he speaks of the girl “brushing her hair like a machine" (19). This is a great way to express to the reader that there is quite a bit of repetition and the girl lacks interest in the class. He even says that he forgot all of their "last names first and their first names last" (13-14), but he knows of them through their actions in his class. Collins shows a clear example of remembering his students through their actions by stating, "the boy who always had his hand up...and the girl that signed her papers in pink lipstick" (15-17). I can't say that I absolutely love this poem but I can say that I do like it because it is so easy to read. On the other hand the poem that I don't care for is "Hope", by Lisel Mueller. I was fooled by this poem because the title clearly states what the poem is about and I obviously didn't catch on to that until after I had read the whole entire thing. I was thinking to myself, what the heck is this about? The title of this poem is deceiving because the content of the poem doesn't specifically say the word "hope" throughout the body; it just gives physical descriptions so that the reader ends up forgetting what it is that they are reading about. Mueller gives a great example by stating that, "it sprouts in each occluded eye/ of the many-eyed potato/ it lives in each earthworm segment/ surviving cruelty" (9-10). He is trying to convey that hope opens the eye of people that are blind to the things that they are scared of or maybe blind to what they are confused and feared by. Earthworms don't have sense of sight so they have to dig and find their way through. The point that I am trying to make is that I didn't understand what the poem is about until after I read several times through and then of course referring back to the title is when the light bulb blinked profusely. Maybe to some other people, they might like this kind of approach with poetry but it utterly confused me.

Blog 7 Hey Batta, Batta, Batta Tina Radstone

In the play Fences, by August Wilson, big-league baseball plays an important role. It is important because in 1957 Major League baseball segregated African American players from all the other players so thus forming the Negro League. Troy Maxson is a player in the Negro League and misses the opportunity to play in the Major League baseball because he is too old. African Americans were recruited into the league during the time that Troy becomes too old (40 years old) to be a player that is considered viable. Troy misses his mark for playing in a big league because he "came along to early". Troy's wife Rose clearly tells him that, "Times have changed since you was playing baseball, Troy. That was before the war. Times have changed a lot since then" (1.1.70). This implies that changes weren’t made to the Major League until after he comes “to old” and then retires from the Negro League. Troy undoubtedly is angry and argues back:

There ought not never have been no time called too early! ... I done seen a hundred niggers play baseball better than Jackie Robinson. Hell, I know
some teams Jackie Robinson couldn't even make! What you talking about
Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson wasn't nobody. I'm talking about if you
could play ball then they ought to have let you play. Don't care what color
you were. Come telling me I come along too early. If you could play ...
then they ought to have let you play. (1.1.74 &78).

Troy is merely trying to get his point across that he didn't come to early, that he is a good player and he knows that there are many other good players that are better than Jackie Robinson who shouldn’t be discriminated against because of the color of their skin.

Troy's connection with baseball is that he was an outstanding baseball player in the Negro League. Another connection that Troy has with baseball is how he uses it in conversation to reveal and justify his actions. I never understand why he would bring up baseball but then it became clear that he doesn't know how to effectively communicate so he uses "baseball" talk to express himself. A great example of this is after he admits to his wife Rose that he has been unfaithful to her, he tries to give her an explanation and says, "Rose, I done tried all my life to live decent...to be a good husband to you...you born with two strikes on you before you come to the plate...You got to guard it closely... always looking for the curve ball on the inside corner" (2.1.104).

Josh Gibson was known as the best batter for the Negro League and like Troy Maxson, Gibson never made it to Major League baseball. Troy knows of him because he and Josh Gibson have the same outcomes of never getting the chance to play in the Major League. Troy feels as though baseball didn't get him anywhere and he says that to his friend Bono, "What it ever get me? Ain't got a pot to piss in or a window to throw out of" (1.1.69). He also feels that it didn't get Josh Gibson anywhere as well because he comments on Gibson's daughter's shoes, "I saw Josh Gibson's daughter yesterday. She walking around with raggedy shoes on her feet" (1.1.76). Josh Gibson's career represent symbols of winning and losing. He is remembered for being discriminated against (losing) and for his own personal achievement as the best batter in the Negro League (winning). Like Josh Gibson, Troy ends up dying as well maybe even from alcoholism. Both men were great at baseball but were never given the chance to make it big at the next level and both had voids in their hearts because they weren't able to live the dream.

 

 

Blog 6 Creepy Claudius Tina Radstone

 
  In my opinion I feel that Claudius has flawed personality traits but yet is evil for the act of planning and committing murder on his brother the former King Hamlet. Claudius has a vision and that vision was to kill his brother, take his brother's wife for his own wife and be heir to the throne. In order for Claudius to kill King Hamlet Sr., he has to have a plan in which he does. Claudius' plan is premeditated and he plots to kill his brother with some poison that he pours in his ear while sleeping. The premeditation and the physical act of killing his brother is what makes Claudius an evil person. Claudius clearly shows the reader how evil he is when he tells his nephew Hamlet to be a man and get over his father's death. Claudius asks Hamlet, "Why should we in our peevish opposition take it to heart?" (1.2.100-101). Claudius asks his nephew why are you resisting and taking this to heart. This isn't something that a normal human being would say after murdering his nephew's father in cold blood. Claudius shows that he is going to get what he wants even if he has to kill his own brother.

     When I think of a flawed human being, I think of certain character flaws that most human beings possess. Here are some character flaws: argumentative, dishonest, conceited, self-fish, narrow-minded, being the victim, etc.. The list goes on but the point that I am trying to make is that Claudius possesses some of these character flaws as well, which makes his character more of a human being to the reader. He has somewhat of a heart and acknowledges that murdering his brother was wrong and wants to be forgiven for it. Claudius admits to God:

            O my offense is rank, it smells to heaven,
            It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
            A brother's murder. Pray can I not... (3.3.35-37).

The play could also be called "The Tragedy  of Claudius, King of Denmark", but wouldn't be as interesting to the audience as Hamlet's tragedies are because Claudius' character never changes and he never goes through any real tragedies, he is one that is causing the tragedies to happen. Hamlet fits the play because he is the one that goes through all of the changes in the story and is the main character that has to endure all of the tragedies that are bestowed upon him.

Blog 5 Betrayal Tina Radstone

Hamlet is a story that has dilemmas to which Hamlet encounters when he returns home to Denmark. He finds out that his father has been murdered by Claudius (Hamlet's uncle) who then takes over his father's throne. He also learns that his uncle marries his mother Gertrude. Hamlet wants to seek revenge for his father's death but isn't strong enough to do so. In the beginning of the story Marcellus and Horatio have seen the ghost of Hamlet's father and tell Hamlet that this ghost looks just like his father. Whether good bad or indifferent, Hamlet wants to go and see the ghost of his father. He learns from the Ghost that in fact he is the spirit of his father. The ghost clearly states this, "I am thy father's spirit..." (1.5.9). Hamlet is shocked but wants to know more and learns that his father's death is not only a murder but a dreadful one as well. His father's spirit explains to him, "Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange and unnatural" (1.5.27-28). This tells the reader that Hamlet's father's spirit is explaining that his death was that of murder and it was absolutely horrible and unnatural at its best. The word unnatural describes to the reader that he didn't die naturally implying something out of the ordinary happened and wasn't an accident. Hamlet is distressed over his mother's marriage to his uncle who killed his father. He is affected by his mother's behavior because she married so quickly after his father's death and out of all people she married his uncle. Hamlet informs us that his mother is lustful and moved on to quickly, "Must I remember? why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on, and yet within a month...a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer..." (1.2.143-151). From this quote I feel like his mother was lusting Claudius for a long time and she knew well what she wanted to do. Futhermore for a woman that just lost her husband she didn't mourn for her husband for a long time. Although Hamlet wants revenge on his uncle, his sanity gets in the ways of his decision to take his uncle's life. He question's his own abilty to kill his uncle and feels that he is a coward. He says with emotion, "A damned defeat was made: am I a coward?" (2.2.545) I feel that Hamlet is weak not because he is a "weak" person but because he wants to confirm that his uncle murdered his father by looking at his expressions. Hamlet describes how he will prompt his uncle:
           For murder, though it have no tounge, will speak
           With most miraculous organ: I'll have these players
           Play something like the murder of my father
           Before mine uncle, I'll observe his looks,
           I'll tent him the quick, if a' do blench... (2.2.557-560).
He just has to see this for himself. He starts to distrust everyone and goes somewhat crazy maybe for the purpose that he didn't want anyone to know what he was doing.

Blog 4 Naked to the World Tina Radstone

Raymond Carver's Cathedral is a story about a man whose life is suspended in animation and is going nowhere and is jealous of his wife's relationship with a blind man that she worked for named Robert. The narrator is unnamed and is ignorant to blindness and acts as though he is unsure of himself which causes him to judge Robert when he is in fact the one who is “blind” to the world. Carver's use of blindness as a symbol gives the reader and insight and meaning to how the husband reacts to life and this blind person, Robert. A really good example of the narrator being ignorant to blind people is right in the beginning of the story when he explains, "And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing eye dogs. A blind man in the house was not something that I looked forward to." (174). This shows that he doesn't know very much about blind people and he forms his opinion of Robert based upon stereotyping from cinema. The narrator always refers to Robert as "the blind man"; he never calls him by his first name. I know that he does this because he is scared and doesn't know how to communicate with a blind person as if it requires a certain special skill. The narrator has no friends except that of his wife and lacks social skills which clearly shows the reader that this guy has a problem with people without even to getting to know them. He makes a rude comment about taking the blind man to go and play pool and all his wife wants him to do is make this man feel comfortable in his stay at their home. She makes this obvious by saying, "If you love me you can do this for me. If you don't love me okay. But if you have a friend, any friend and the friend came to visit, I'd make him feel comfortable." (176). This statement makes it obvious to  me that he has no friends at all whatsoever and is confirmed by his wife she says, "You don't have any friends...Period..." (176). Another outstanding use of symbolism is the cathedral. The narrator asks the blind man, "Do you have any idea what a cathedral is? What they look like that is?" (180). How can this blind man possibly know what a cathedral looks like; he's blind! The cathedral is used as a learning tool for the narrator to teach the blind man what a cathedral looks like through by first telling him characteristics of the cathedral, "To begin with they are very tall." (181). Seriously this was not a good way to explain what a cathedral looked like to a blind man. The cathedral was then again a learning tool for the blind man because he would hold his hand over the husband's and draw it together. Paragraph 116, page 182 explains this, "He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his fist over my hand." The cathedral in the end of the story helps the blind man to visualize and conceptualize what a cathedral "looks like" but more importantly it changed the life of the narrator from being blind to Robert's disability by being able to open his heart and mind to his own life and the lives of others. A good example of this is when the narrator says "It was like nothing else in my life up to now." (183).

Blog 3 A turn for the worst... Tina Radstone

     I chose Option 3 for the use of irony in Poe's and Chopin's stories because both stories had outcomes that were crazy, weird and more importantly unexpected. In both The Story of an Hour and The Cask of Amontillado the authors use irony to keep their readers suspended. This allows the reader to plug in their own thoughts for the outcome and keeps the reader guessing to what is going to happen.

     In the beginning of The Story of an Hour, Chopin’s uses irony in such a way in which she gives out little “kernels” to keep up interested and curious. Almost like that of eating popcorn at the movie theatre wondering what is going to happen next. This happens in the beginning of the story where Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death by his friend Richards who saw Mrs. Mallory’s husbands name on the list of “killed” and Richards “had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by second telegram…” (337). This lead me to believe that Brently Mallard is dead because the second telegram confirms that it was the truth when in fact in the end we learned that he is alive and “had been far from the scene of the accident, and didn’t even know there had been one.” (338). Chopin also states in the text that Mrs. Mallard “was afflicted with heart trouble…” (337). This sentence gave me the impression that her condition was serious but yet isn’t mentioned continuously throughout the story. The irony in this story is that she had heart trouble and didn’t die from the symptoms of her heart trouble; she in fact died of---“a joy that kills.” (339). The joy that killed Mrs. Mallard/Louise is the joy that she experienced when she found out that her husband had died in a train accident. She was happy and relieved and shares that by whispering, “Free! Body and soul free!” (338). It is the very moment when Mrs. Mallard’s own joy made her happy knowing that her husband died and is the same joy that kills her when she sees her husband is alive standing behind Richards who tried to stand in front of him so that his wife wouldn’t see him.

In The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, the story uses irony to exemplify symbolism. A clear example of this is the name of Montresor’s friend/victim “Fortunato”; which is an Italian name that symbolizes a fortunate or lucky person. This is interesting because the narrator describes his friend stating that, “He had a weak point---this Fortunato---although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared.” (525). Fortunato’s name implies that he is a man with good fortune or is lucky, but Montresor states again, “Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack…” (525) He is implying that Fortunato is a con artist, a fraud, a man that is to be feared; the total opposite of what any person might think that of his name. Furthermore Fortunato isn’t so fortunate at the end when he was buried alive in the cask. Another example of irony in this story is when Fortunato told Montresor, “You are not of the masons” (527) and he wants Montresor to prove that he is. Montresor answers by jesting to Fortunato, “Is it this” (527) and pulls out a trowel from beneath the roquelaire (cloak). What Montressor is asking him is if is if he is with the Free Masons and Montresor knows what he his asking but jokes with him and says he is some sort of craftsman. He talks of his masonry in the text that proves that he is a craftsman. He states on page 528, “I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry …” and as he is finishing his work he said, “…holding the flambeaux over the mason work…” This is ironic because with all the materials that he has, he is building a burial for his victim, alive!

Sticks and Stone... Blog 2 Tina Radstone

I did Blog 2 on The Lottery by Shirley Jackson which is a short story that portrays a small village that partakes in the annual ritual of having a lottery in which the "prize" isn't money; it is the stoning of a towns person that picks a piece of paper with a black mark on it. The ritual although seems very primal and barbaric, is carried out every year in this modern town. The speaker in this story is told in third person, dramatic point of view. The author does this so that the reader isn't totally informed what is going on and so that she doesn't give out any obvious conclusions. Jackson only gives little hints as to what is going on in the story so that the reader can make their own conclusions. In the beginning of the story Jackson starts out the story by telling us, "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny with the fresh warmth of the summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely..." (140). This opening of the story starts out describing what the day is like. It made me feel as though I could actually smell the flowers  that were blossoming and could feel the heat of the sun on my face. It also makes the reader feel in the beginning that it is going to be a good day for the lottery and someone is going to be happy because they are winning some money. This is exactly what Jackson's intentions were. There are no hints, she isn't telling us how people feel, she didn't lead us to the way we think that the story is suppose to go. Jackson also talks about the gathering of stones from the children. The author states, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones and the other boys soon followed his example..." (140). When I was reading this I couldn't make out what these boys were going to do with the stones because it was the beginning of the story and there was no specific point made what they were going to do with them. For all I knew and was thinking is that there were boys gathering stones so I thought that maybe they were going to play some game with them. It's not until the end of the story that you are told exactly what these stones are going to be used for. The character Tessie Huchinson was standing in the center of some space that was cleared out for her and the towns people gathered around and you then know she is being stone because it states on page 145, "A stone hit her on the side of the head." My mouth dropped opened because I really didn't want to think that something so uncivilized and cruel was happening in that small modern day town. If the narrator in this story would have told her point of view in the first person, I believe that the story's ending wouldn't have had the same effect on us as she telling the story in third person. My point is that in first person speaker Jackson would have talked about things that she has done heard, and thought from her first hand experiences. (123). If she had done then she would have expelled the reason why these children were gathering stones and what kind of lottery it really was. If this was done then the whole premise of the reader drawing their own conclusion wouldn't have happened.