My Final Blog *brushes away a single tear*

      Last year I walked into the AP Lang exam with shaking hands.  The fact that I had only read about 2 novels and done a few multiple choice exercises all year proved to me that I was not ready.  Unfortunately, the exam was just what I thought it would be.  I did not finish the multiple choice and wrote three terrible essays (one of them I even alluded to Forrest Gump).  My lack of preparation turned me into a complete mess that mirrored my exam.  However, this year was completely different.  I entered the test taking area as nervous as can be based on my previous exam, but felt much better coming out of the test than last year.  I finished my multiple choice with enough time to go back and look through my answers.  The essays were much better than last year, too.  I knew immediately which novel to write about for question three and immediately knew what I wanted to talk about for questions one and two after reading he passages.  All in all, the exam was alright.  I cannot really complain.  I am not completely sure what score I will recieve but I am hopeful for around a four.

Ms. Clinch, I truly feel that I have improved more than I ever thought I would as an AP Literature student.  This year has been tough, exhausting and strenuous but I would not have changed it for the world.  I have grown so much through AP Literature and though I do feel the absolute need to analyze just about everything that I see, watch or hear, I still feel great that I have come through the other side of this class.  I feel as though I now wear a badge of honor for surviving this class and I can wear that figurative badge with honor and pride.  Thank you for everything.  From the never-ending novel readings to the monotonous poetry notebook, I feel as though they were all worth it to come out of the class victorious.  Though I was stressed before, I feel so relieved; it is almost as if a huge wait has been lifted off of my shoulders.  I am glad to say that I took the class, but I am also glad to say that I am finished with the class!  I am proud of myself and the class for sticking with the class until the very end and continuing on with the hard work; everyone who stayed knew it would be worth it in the end and it truly was.  I know I will be able to walk into literature freshman year of college knowing that I am prepared and ready to take the class!

Homosexuality--Making Hypocrites of Society

After the discussion in class today, I now realize just how sexual the play The Importance of Being Earnest actually is.  I am shocked.  The cucumber sandwiches may seem to be harmless, but in reality they are a major sexual reference that is almost completely vulgar since the play is intended to be seen by all people of all ages.  The cucumbers are sliced, but when thought of as an unsliced vegetable they can also represent a quite blatant phallic symbol.  The act of the men eating these cucumber sandwiches is also a reference to a vulgar sexual act.

Another sexual reference in the play is the fake character named Bunbury.  No, he is not real, but he is mentioned quite a lot.  The name “bunbury” has two key words that make up the whole: bun and bury.  “Bun” is described by dictionary.com as slang for “the buttocks.”  “Bury” is described by dictionary.com as a way “to plunge in deeply” or “to immerse (oneself).”  When these two words are put together, it is quite clear to understand the point that Oscar Wilde is trying to get across to the audience.

Besides Wilde’s quite blatant sexual references, there are more discrete (and less vulgar) ones to suggest his homosexual code throughout the play.  He uses Lady Bracknel as a key character in this code.  She is the one who flips the sexist stereotypes by being loud and boisterous and pushing men around, while the social norms are that women stay quiet and away and are pushed around by men.  The flip in gender stereotypes shows that women can be masculine and men can be feminine, just as gay people are viewed to be.

I am honestly quite shocked that The Picture of Dorian Gray is the novel that suggested Wilde’s homosexuality, especially since I feel that this play is much more sexual than his other work.  Then again, I read that novel many months ago and did not know of Wilde being gay, so I did not look for any gay hints in the novel as I did in this play.  Wilde’s forceful emphasis on everything homosexual seems almost as if he was trying to be caught and he was trying to push boundaries just so that he can proved that homosexuality may be condemned by all social classes, but the same people who are against his ways and beliefs are entertained by his works of literature.  In other words, these people say that being gay is a sin while they pay money to go see plays all about being gay, though they do not know it yet.  It is actually quite genius of Wilde to do this since the play is about mocking society and society knows this, but he is also mocking society in a different way and proving they are all hypocrites while they have absolutely no idea of this.  I now understand why Wilde is widely studied today, since he was such a mastermind in his days.

My Apprehension

To be honest, I absolutely adore The Importance of Being Earnest!  The humour in it seems to be quite close to that of the Monty Python movies, which I have grown up watching.  The trivial matters taken seriously and the serious matters taken trivially, however, seem to confuse me quite a bit.  I understand that Oscar Wilde intended this to be a way to poke fun at the higher class and show how messed up their troubles actually are, but I feel like there is something else that is intended by this.  To be honest, I feel as though I may just be grasping at straws since I honestly do not know what else the switch of serious and trivial could be used for besides the obvious of making fun of the upper class.  I just feel as if Wilde is intending something else that I have not yet discovered.

Another point I have to make about this play is that I understand it now, but I feel as though the plot will become quite twisted with the second identities (such as Jack in the city and Earnest in the countryside) and the question of who is Earnest, since many people claim to his name, but just as false identities.  I know that the plot, though it will become quite humorous, will also become more confusing and since it is so close to the end of the year, I feel as if my brain will not want to handle more confusing literature with hidden meanings.  I am trying to keep it going until the end of the novel, but honestly the amount of analyzing we have done on the other novels seems to have add up throughout time and now I need an easy read.  This could possibly be an easier read than all of the others and I may simply be overreacting, since I realize now that the play is certainly not like Hamlet in need of some strong analysis and confusing roles between protagonist and antagonist.

All in all, I feel as though my apprehension is getting the better of me since I am not in the right mindset to do another major analyzation.  To me, I cannot just read the play and enjoy it, I do have to analyze it but the analyzation mixed with the fear of confusion is what is truly holding me back.  Maybe it is a good thing that we are reading this in class and therefore we can learn together, which will decrease the confusion of the class as a whole.  I know I am probably overreacting, but I am worried about this play since the last one was Hamlet, which is truly an amazing play, do not get me wrong, but is also confusing and does not seem to have an answer to any of the questions created because of it.  There has got to be some middle ground between super easy and Hamlet-hard, and maybe that middle ground is The Importance of Being Earnest.

Emma: The Setting Makes The Novel

In Jane Austen’s Emma, the setting has a major bearing on the novel as a whole.  A tiny little town with nothing to do in it seems as if it would not affect the novel, however, I believe that is the point.  Austen is trying to tell the reader that even the most simplistic settings can change the novel completely.  I have been thinking about this lately and it is true that this novel would not be anything like it is now without having this setting.  Emma would not be bored enough to want to entertain herself with matchmaking, which would halt the rest of the novel from happening.  It is interesting when I think about it because if the same exact characters from the novel were dropped into some big hustling and bustling city such as New York City, there is almost a guarantee that none of the events of the novel would have taken place.  Emma would have most likely found some other people whose lives were in need of Emma meddling into, Mr. Woodhouse would certainly not have the fears that he holds in the novel since he would not be able to leave his apartment building if he had them in NYC, and Mr. Knightley would have found someone who truly belongs with him rather than ending with Emma who believes she is in love due to pure jealousy.  There would be no Harriet, no tea parties, and certainly no literary merit for the novel.  On that note, there is no telling whether we would be reading this novel in class today if the setting was any different.  Austen needed the dull setting in order to prove Emma’s boredom then turn Emma into a matchmaker through that boredom.  Emma could have found something else. Maybe something that is actually useful, to do with her life rather than matchmaking if she had been dropped into any other setting than this.  But maybe that is just it, Austen had to make the townspeople’s lives so unbelievably boring that a marriage between two random people could absolutely rock their world.  I know that if I had read this novel with the setting being in New York City, a wedding would not have even made it to the list of exciting things happening in the novel, yet when the setting is so mind-numbingly boring, something like a wedding is quite exciting; I know I was elated to read about the union between a ditsy, egotistic girl and a self-righteous man.  And the fact that I was actually rooting for them and cheering them on all the way to the aisle makes me realize that even though they are absolutely angrily annoying, I still feel happiness since we have followed them this far.  Maybe it is the fact that I was excited for them since this moment could be one of the happiest they will ever experience, or maybe I was simply excited that I had finally reached the end of such a long novel, but regardless, I was pleased when I reached the last chapter and everything came to a close.

My Experience With The Regency Era

After experiencing the life of a 2nd class citizen of England during the Regency Era, I now understand what a tough time these people have even when they look like they are happy.  Being Lady Crowley, I had to make sure to spend time with the Duchess since she is my good friend, then I have to spend the appropriate time with my husband Sir Andrew Crowley, I also have to make sure to keep an eye on Mr. Darcy and Miss DeBergh since I suspect they are up to something and on top of all of that I have to remember my etiquette.  Yes, it seems like fun and games (mainly because we are playing cards and dancing) but it is also very hard to keep up with everything that I am supposed to do.  It also pains me to know that women are not aloud to show how smart they are since that is apparently the men’s job.  All I can say is I am glad that I was born when I was because if I lived in a time like this I guarantee I would go insane since I would be stuck cooking, cleaning and looking pretty for my husband.  I mean, is it really too much to ask for a bit of recognition of the women’s side?  We are just as strong as men and although they treat women right by protecting them whether it be from a saving a women’s dress from dragging through a puddle or protecting her honor, they still suppress the women.  Luckily now, women have almost-equal rights as men, but this suppression that went on during the Regency Era is not one to overlook.  In fact, the only woman that seemed to have even an ounce of power in her relationship was the Duchess and that was simply for the fact that she is the Duchess.  However, something that strikes me as odd is the fact that women are not really supposed to be showing how smart they are or having the upper hand in most cases, but Emma seems to defy these rules.  Emma is cunning and sly even to men, and wants to show her power to people such as Mr. Knightley.  Oh faith, she is such a rebel!  However, I would not describe Emma as having bad form since she has proved herself to many of the men and although she attempts to outsmart them, she does it in such a way that they do not even notice.  Emma can be a symbol to all of us women that although she may live in a suppressed era, that does not mean that we have to be suppressed ourselves.  We can break out of the social barrier just as Emma did.  Women will learn from Emma for years to come and maybe one day, possibly around the 21st century, we will live a lifestyle of equality where we do not have to prove ourselves to the men.  Zooks! this is our England, too!

The Motif of Eyes

I am going to be honest; I do like Emma much more now that I have a deeper understanding of the novel.  Now that I have a firmer grasp on who the characters truly are, I feel as if they are much more relatable.  However, I do not understand Emma’s pull toward Harriet.  In fact, Harriet’s eye seem to be the main focal point of her character.  The narrator says, “those soft blue eyes and all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury, and its connections” (20).  After this mention of Harriet’s eyes, I began circling every time I saw the word “eyes.”  I noticed this word does come up many times after Harriet has entered the novel.  “‘The expression of the eye is most correct’” (41), “‘If I had set my heart on Mr. Elton’s marrying Harriet, it would have been very kind to open my eyes’” (58), “she cast her eye over it” (64), “May its approval beam in that soft eye” (64), “soft is the very word for her eye” (64), and “You soft eyes shall choose their own time for beaming” (68) are but a few examples of this word used everywhere.  It seems almost as if every time Harriet is mentioned, her eyes are described first.  The word “soft” often accompanies the eye.  Since the eyes are the windows to the soul, this could mean that Harriet’s soul is in fact soft.  Soft can also be described as moldable.  As we have seen throughout the novel so far Harriet follows everything Emma tells her and lets Emma manipulate her as a sculptor manipulates moldable clay.  She is young and impressionable so that could be the reason why her eyes, and therefore her soul, is soft.  The irony of the line, “those soft blue eyes and all those natural graces” is the fact that the softness of Harriet’s eyes are what have led her to be almost completely unnatural.  Harriet without the influence of Emma could be described as her pure and natural form, but now that Emma has changed her and manipulated her into being the person Emma wants to see, Harriet could now be described as unnatural since she is technically no longer herself.  I might be crazy for following the descriptions of eyes that seem to be everywhere, or I might still be in Hamlet-mode since we only just finished the play, but I believe there is something very significant about Harriet’s eyes that we have not found yet.  I feel as though maybe with closer analyzation I will find some deeper meaning that the softness referring to her easily-change soul and personality, but for now I have sadly found nothing other than that.  There is a possibility that Part II will continue with this motif until I finally complete this puzzle or crack this code, at least I hope so since this word is will be playing on my mind until I figure out why it is everywhere in the novel.

My Rant About Emma

The beginning of Jane Austen’s novel Emma honestly does not seem too gripping to me.  My honest truth is that I love Hamlet since he was such a verbal contortionist that we can analyze all of his plays in infinite ways and there are no true answers as to what the true intention of the play was originally.  However, Emma so far seems very different from any typical Shakespeare play.  Yes, they both tend to have slow parts, but this novel has more slow than interesting parts.  This may simply be due to the fact that I have never read a Jane Austen novel before and maybe I am trying to understand her writing style but have not yet fully grasped it, but to me it seems quite slow.  I may just be completely wrong since we have not yet begun to analyze or discuss Emma yet, but this form of writing does not quite seem as if Shakespeare would come close to it.  He linked so many words together to form separate meanings which then lead to completely different meanings and so on and so forth, but all Jane Austen seems to do is put me to sleep.  I understand that I must read this novel knowing that is was written in the 1800s and it will seem almost nothing like the movie “Clueless,” which is loosely based on this novel, even though I completely adore it.  I believe my major problem with this novel is that fact that we have switched gears from an action-packed, fast-paced play written by a writer that I respect completely to a slow-moving, (I hate to say it but) dull novel written by a writer that I have heard of but have never read any of her works.  Do I feel bad for bad-mouthing this book even though we have only just begun with Jane Austen?  Yes.  Do I feel as if Austen is possibly rolling over in her grave (or twisting around as dust particles; sorry, I felt the need for a Hamlet reference there) at my anger over a book she intended for people of the 1800s?  Yes.  However, do I want to read another page of this?  I can’t say I do.  I might just be acting over dramatic right now since I have never dealt with her writing style before, but this is how I honestly feel.  I do believe, however, that once we start analyzing and discussing it in class I will feel much more comfortable and happy with this novel.  I do believe I will grow to like Jane Austen, since the same thing happened with Grendel since I hated it initially but now it is one of my favorite novels that we have read not only throughout the school year, but also throughout my entire high school career.  I need to give this novel a chance of discussion in class and then, and only then, do I feel as if I will appreciate it more than I do now.

The So-Called "Ghost" In Hamlet

      Upon reading even more Hamlet, I have come to the conclusion that maybe the ghost of the dead King is not actually there.  This may sound strange since we have not discussed it all that much in class, however after reading the closet scene between Hamlet and Gertrude, it is something I believe in.

      When a son’s father dies, the son immediately wants to place the blame on someone.  This is a coping mechanism used by most people.  Often in life do people need to know who to place the blame on in order to have someone to focus their anger and aggression at.  In an effort to place the blame on someone, I believe Hamlet subconsciously knew there was no true evidence against Claudius.  However, Hamlet had to have something to prove to himself that Claudius is the perpetrator.  In an effort to convince himself, he conjured up a ghost in his mind.  Yes, this sounds like a stretch, but then again does a ghost ordering his son to murder the new king sound plausible? I did not think so either.

      Yes, Barnardo and Horatio were there to show Hamlet the ghost, but maybe they were playing along with Hamlet’s grief.  After all, they have been claimed to flatter and suck-up to the King, so why not the prince, too?  They tell Hamlet that the have “found” the “ghost” of the king in order to play on Hamlet’s heartstrings and possible even to mess with Hamlet since they are his friends, too.

      Then it comes to Gertrude and the conversation she has with Hamlet in the closet.  When Hamlet sees the ghost, he begins to talk to it, however Gertrude sees nothing there which furthers her belief that Hamlet is insane.  But Hamlet is not actually insane, he is just mourning and this is the way his brain is coping.  A mother does not need to flatter or play with her son’s mind; she is meant to be in his life to tell him the cold hard facts.  So, when Hamlet begins to speak to something that is apparently not there, she speaks up.  Barnardo and Horatio might have not done this for the sole purpose of staying on Hamlet’s good side and continuing to be flatterers.  Gertrude states that there is no one in the room and she does not know who Hamlet is speaking to, but the idea of a ghost that has come for revenge on its murderer is too far engrained in Hamlet’s mind to believe that it was all fake now.  If he realized that this whole idea of his father’s ghost was not real, then this part of his life would essentially be ruined; Hamlet would merely be the insane man that was sent of to England.  It is inconceivable to think that something fake could go this far, so Hamlet continues on subconsciously knowing that his ruined reputation, ruined love life and ruined relationship with his mother were all for nothing.

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

For my outside reading I have been working on Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons.  This novel is an extremely depressing yet eye-opening look at an abusive family through a child’s eyes.  The naïvety of the child Ellen is what makes this novel all the more heart-wrenching.  She believes her mother has “romantic fever” rather than “rheumatic fever” and therefore believes her mother will be completely fine once she gets over this “romantic fever,” however this is not the case.  Her mother over-doses on pills in front of the drunk, good-for-nothing father and begins to pass out.  Ellen shows extreme maturity here when she tells her mother that in order to get better she must throw up the pills; her dad, on the other hand, tells Ellen that the pills the mother took are not bad pills.  He convinces Ellen that the mother simply needs to lay down on the bed for a little while and then she will be better.  That night Ellen cuddles up to her mother and feels her mother’s last heart beat. She solemnly states, “My heart can be the one that beats.  And hers has stopped.”  Ellen realizes that if it was not for her father, her mother would have stayed alive and then states, “Damn him to the bottom of Hell.”  This remark is not one to typically be spoken by a young girl, however the novel does state that she hates her father since the opening line is: “When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.”  Though thoughts like this never cross a normal child’s mind, since it is usually filled with thoughts of playing with friends and eating sweets, she cannot exactly be defined as a “normal” child.  After her mother dies, she takes the role of the mother and the daughter by buying Christmas presents for herself and wrapping them the night before.  She then proceeds to hide them and finds them in the morning with a look of shock on her face as if it were a surprise.  She flat out admits that she knows Santa Claus is not real, but the child inside her wants to keep that part of her childhood alive.  Just because Ellen is forced into adulthood, it does not necessarily mean she is ready for it.  In fact, she still enjoys acting as a child when she is not in her father’s house of horrors.  She goes horseback riding with her new friend Starletta who is young than her, but she is a friend nonetheless.  So far this book’s mood has seemed ever changing, which is quite confusing since it is about a young girl living a terrible life.  The novel will switch from sadness during the mother’s death to disbelief when the mothers death “finally shut [the father] up” to happiness when she is contemplating what to do with her day whether it be horseback riding or eating whatever her “new mama” is making in the kitchen.  This book has been quite an emotional roller coaster so far, but it has got me hooked and now I cannot put it down.

"If" in Hamlet

I understand that in literature, speaking in terms of “if” is, for the most part, forbidden.  By “if” I mean that writing if something had happened, then something else would have happened is not taken too fondly in literature.  However, I feel as if I need to address the “if” factor in Hamlet because I feel as if the play can change with whatever interpretation it has.  First off, when Gertrude, Polonius and Claudius are discussing Hamlet’s mental state, Hamlet walks in reading a book.  If he had overheard the three of them talking about him, this could give him a moral boost since he would understand that they are all buying into his facade of a crazy man.  This leads to the next “if” in the play.  If Hamlet is truly acting crazy, then what is the reason for this madness?  He could be going insane over the fact that he just spoke to his father’s ghost or the realization that his father was murdered by the man who is now his mother’s wife.  Yes, this could lead a man to go insane, but he still comes out with smart and witty retorts when speaking to Polonius, thus making him look smarter than Polonius.  If a man was going insane, I doubt he would have the time, or mental ability for that matter, to come up with such smart responses; this leads into the next “if.”  If Hamlet is actually acting rather than being crazy (or “seeming” rather than “ising”), then why is he doing this?  What is the purpose of his facade?  His smart, witty comments could now be seem as him trying to confuse Polonius rather than simply trying to outsmart him.  Another “if” that has been playing on my mind is the case of Ophelia and her possible pregnancy.  If Ophelia is portrayed as a less-than-innocent character, she could possibly be pregnant with Hamlet’s child since her father has ow banned her from seeing Hamlet.  This could be due to the fact that the father knows about the pregnancy, yet Hamlet seems to know absolutely nothing about any of this, so this could be a possible reason as to why Ophelia can no longer see Hamlet in fear that he would not have a kind reaction to Hamlet.  However, if Ophelia is an innocent girl after all, she could be as utterly confused as she seems in the play.  If Ophelia has not been having relations with Hamlet, then her father could be pulling her away from him for fear that she would look bad in the public eye since he is rapidly going insane, which could tarnish her reputation.  However, Ophelia has not seen Hamlet between the time that he begins to go insane and the time that her father has banned her from Hamlet, so she could not know what is happening with Hamlet and why she is now banned from seeing him.  She could either be a naïve girl or a mischievous one.

Doubting Thomas

My allusion presentation of this week is Doubting Thomas.  This story centers around a man who refuses to believe in the second coming of Christ and continues his disbelief until he is greeted by Christ eight days later.  The nickname “Doubting Thomas” is meant to describe either a pessimist or a person who will not believe in something until they are actually shown that it is real.  I thought about this allusion for a while and realized that many stories do actually have a Doubting Thomas in them.  Most horror movies that I have seen have the tough jock in it (who is usually killed first, by the way) who refuses to believe in whatever mysterious evil being there is; this character will often say that he is not scared and try to confront the antagonistic creature in order to show everyone else that it is not real.  However, since it is a horror movie, the being is always real and the jock who provoked it is most often than not killed.  There are many other movie genres that include a character like this, too.  For example, in the comedy Warm Bodies, a zombie falls in love with a girl, who soon realizes that with her love she is changing hims back into a human; the father of the girl refuses to believe this since his wife was killed by a zombie when the apocalypse first happened.  The father only changes his belief when (SPOILER ALERT) the zombie is shot and begins to bleed.  This scene is of great importance since a major trait in zombies is that they do not bleed, meaning that the zombie has now turned into a human.  The father finally decides that zombies can change and decides to fight on their side during the apocalypse rather than fight against them.  The father could easily be classified as a Doubting Thomas not only for the reason that he would not believe in the transformation of zombies to humans, but also because he did not have any trust or faith in his daughter’s words; he had to shoot the zombie in order to believe in the transformation, rather than simply believe that his daughter was telling the truth.  Part of being a Doubting Thomas is having no trust in others and only having trust in what is seen rather than what is believed.  This actually makes me wonder whether I am a Doubting Thomas or not.  After all, I do not believe when people tell me outlandish things in order to stay away from having “gullible” tattooed across my forehead, yet I do believe in that which cannot be seen such as God and even paranormal entities.  Now I’m not saying I believe in spooky ghosts who float around the world in order to haunt people, but I do believe in life after death, though I cannot see it.  After researching this allusion, I am now questioning myself: am I a Doubting Thomas?

This Soliloquy Is About You

After continuing our discussion on Hamlet’s first soliloquy, and after a long day of school, I promptly went home, plugged my headphones into my computer and began singing along to many songs by Olly Murs.  However, after I listened to his song “This Song Is About You,” I had to play it again because it seemed almost as if it were a modern adaptation of Hamlet’s soliloquy.  The song begins with, “This is my confessional/On pen and paper I’m going to write this down/Saying things you never thought,” which essentially covers the main idea of the soliloquy.  Hamlet does not say his true feelings to anyone but himself and speaking of the wrongs that his mother has committed and never believed was wrong.  Olly Murs then goes on to say, “I won’t lie, no I’m not okay.”  At this point both Murs and Hamlet are speaking or singing only to themselves and admitting to only themselves that they are not okay.  They are feeling broken and worn down, yet they cannot express their feelings to the person whom they need to the most, so they hold their tongue and only admit to themselves what their true feelings are.  In the chorus, the line “I hope you know this song is about you” is repeated many times, emphasizing the anger toward the person it is aimed at and the frustration that they do not understand their wrong doings.  This, of course, is much like Hamlet.  He is angry at his mother and makes the entire soliloquy about her wrong doings and shouting obscene generalizations, such as “frailty thy name is woman!” yet he is aiming all of these insults at his mother.  The soliloquy is about Gertrude, yet there is a part of Hamlet that does not want his mother to know about it and a part of him that wants his mother to know the soliloquy is about her.  The bridge of the song links back to the soliloquy, too, since one of the lines is “I hope you feel the same way that I felt that day/That you let me, yeah you left me.”  This part of the song reminds me of the movie version that we watched where everyone left and Hamlet was left in a giant room by himself, where he goes on to state his soliloquy.  He feels lonely, abandoned and full of grief in this scene yet his mother feels only pure happiness for the fact that she is marrying Hamlet’s uncle; he is filled with anger and feels as though Gertrude should be feeling the same way as him rather than moving on to “incestuous sheets.”  Hamlet’s wish is for Gertrude to one day grieve for the great king, his father, as he has been doing by himself.  This song and this soliloquy are both filled with many emotions such as anger, grief, rage, and sadness.  Both Hamlet and Murs are suffering through different situations, however they are dealing with them in much the same way.

Yay Poetry!

Upon researching many poems, I have found that I do have a soft spot in my heart for most poetry.  For many years I have been obsessed with writing poetry that I never thought of looking up published poetry for any inspiration.  I recently found a poem by e.e. cummings entitled “my father moved through dooms of love,” which is my latest target to understand and annotate.  When I first read the beginning stanza, I believed the poem to be something of a pleasant story about the speaker’s father, but after reading through the rest of the poem I became confused.  Each stanza seems to create its own story and emotion, yet the stanza’s all connect to create one confusing poem.  When I annotate this, I will make sure to pay special attention to the shifts in tone from one stanza to the next and will try to find what the speaker is trying to say about his father.  One key point that I have been thinking about is that maybe the poem is meant to be this cataclysmic mess of emotions because that is how a typical family is; there are hugs, punches, smiles, and tears yet in the end the family still remains together.  Each of the stanzas could represent a different emotion that the father has brought upon the speaker, yet when all of the stanzas are combined, they make a typical father and child relationship.  This may be completely wrong since in the end I do not actually know what e.e. cummings actually wanted to say, but I can guess that the relationship between the speaker and the son is one with many ups and downs.  The contradicting characterization the father of happy yet sad and praised yet feared seems to be summed up into one stanza, when the poem explains that he is “giving to steal and cruel kind,/a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,/to differ a disease of same,/conform the pinnacle of am.”  The description of the father explains that he is one huge contradiction.  He is “giving to steal” and “cruel kind,” meaning that he is good yet evil.  This description of the father leads me to believe that the speaker is unreliable or a child, since a child goes through a roller coaster of emotions towards their parents.  At this point the child is not sure whether the father is looking out for him or purposely being evil, so the child’s brain is not sure what to think.  When a child gets older, however, he or she realizes that whatever the father is doing is most likely in the best interest of the child, and accepts that the father is only looking out for him or her.  At a young age, children cannot comprehend that what they want may not be what is best for them, and therefore feel as if the father is cruel.  The speaker may not in fact be a child, but I perceive the poem to be spoken by an irrational person, also known as a child.

My View on "in Just--"

After reading “in Just--” by e.e. cummings, I realize how complex yet how simple poetry can truly be.  When I read this poem by myself I became extremely confused at what the poem was trying to say, however, after discussing with the class I now understand the meaning.  This poem is about a devil-like creature stealing children’s childhoods and forcing them into maturity.  The sudden change in the poem from describing the lead character as “balloonman” to “balloonMan” shows a quick shift into maturity where he is becoming an actual man rather than a boy, just like the four children he changes turns from children to adults.  This transition is foreshadowed earlier on in the poem when the formatting of “far and wee” changes three times.  First, the “far” is separated from “and wee,” then “far and wee” are all separated, and finally the words in “far/and/wee” are each given their own lines, which shows the further separation of childhood and adulthood; they soon become completely independent from each other.  The balloonMan is also described as “goat-footed,” which is a quite obvious representation of the devil in its true form.  The formatting around this stanza is interesting since the lines create an image of steps.  These steps represent the changing of “levels.”  Steps are a transition from one floor to another in literal terms, but in the context of the poem they represent the transition from a level of childhood to a level of adulthood.  The transition is brought on by the balloonman, meaning that the balloonman is represented as the steps of life; forcing these children into adulthood.

The setting of April is interesting since April is rainy and “puddle-wonderful,” which represents a transformation.  The word “mud-/luscious” is meant to show the transformation after the rain or storm; the dirt becomes mud, meaning that there is a full transition, a rebirth.  This could also represent the rebirth of the children since they start April as children and end as adults.  When “bettyandisbel come dancing/from hop-scotch and jump-rope,” they are abandoning their childhood games to follow the man who will transform them; the same idea stands for “eddieandbill” too since they “come/running from marbles and/piracies.”  The abandonment on the childhood toys and games and the choice to follow the balloonman shows that they are willing to make the change and become adults.  Due to the fact that the balloonman is thought of as such an evil, negative figure, the poet could possibly be a parent speaking of his or her child that has now fully bloomed into an adult; to the parent, their child’s childhood has been ripped away from not only the children, but also the parents.  This “balloonman” could be a figure made up by the parent’s subconscious in order to figure out a way to explain why the children would want to grow into adults rather than dealing with the fact that the children are making their own choice to grow up and move further from the childhood that parents wish would last forever.