This too I shall pass....

I came, and hopefully conquered. We have finally made it to the end of this 20 something odd chapter novel that is my blog. AP Literature was not easy I struggled in staying on top of my work and time management, which seems to always be my struggle whenever I seem to be falling behind in a class, but it I feel as though it definitely helped me in preparing me for the AP exam. I really didn't like the Ap exam because it's so hard reading the passages in the multiple choice because they just seem so complex and they don't really make any sense. The questions they ask go from easy to hard and the hard ones were sometimes just as confusing as the passage. But overall the multiple choice went fairly well. The essays, which we have spent the entire year on, in hopes of grades above a five, were interesting to say the least. Normally when we look at poems there is some specific hidden idea that we look for; some type of journey, loss of innocence, or growth, I didn't really see that in this specific poem all I saw was a actual object that represented the past and the debate between holding on to the past and letting go of it, which I guess would sort of be the hidden meaning, but because of what we have learned in Lit all year I just felt that there was something more that I needed to have seen and I didn't. Literature has taught me to really look within the poem for what the poet is really trying to say about everyday life, and I just know there was more in this poem then holding on to the past life. With the prose piece I was able to comprehend what the author was saying about the women's situation and what she wanted to do with her life, but it just seemed so in your face about her situation and the kind of women that she is, that, once again, you thought there needed to be more. I talked about the symbolism of the vicar and the differences between the vicar and her husband and how that characterized the woman, but when we write prose essays in class we always have to go deeper in order to receive a better grade.It separates the 5 or 6 from a 7 or 8. With the free response I wrote about Emma and Box Hill because that is a pivotal moment, where she starts to do more introspection. It worked out really well because we spent a lot of time talking about Emma, in class. All in All I think AP Lit has definitely helped me on the exam.We're aiming for a 4

No Importance of Being Earnest

Why does Jack refuse to give his consent to Cecily’s marriage? How may this help his own case with Lady Bracknell?  

Jack refuses to give his consent to Cecily because if he says that Cecily can’t marry Algy then Lady Bracknell will try to convince him to let her marry him because she has a lot of money. Jack is using Cecily as leverage so that Lady Bracknell would first give him permission to marry Gwendolyn, and the longer that he holds out on Lady Bracknell then she will have to give in to Gwendolyn marrying Jack because lady wants the bounty that comes with Cecily. She has already given Cecily the right to call her aunt, so she has already accepted her, but it’s really only for the money.

Why do you think Algernon “kills” Bunbury? Why does he not need him anymore?

Algernon used Bunbury as an excuse to get out of going to his Aunt’s dinner parties, but now he has found a more logical reason to get out of the parties, Cecily. I think he killed Bunbury because he was tired of lying, after she found out that his name wasn’t really Earnest then which turned into a web of lies and so he wanted to be his true self and just be Algernon, and get rid of the lie of Earnest and Bunbury.

Describe the recognition scene in Act iii.  How is Jack’s discovery of his true identity ironic?

Jack realizes that he is actually related to Lady Bracknell and that he is the nephew of Lady Bracknell and Gwendolyn is his cousin. It is ironic that he turns out to be the brother of Algernon, so when he said that he was earnest in the city and Jack in the country it turned that not only did he actually have a brother but he was also true about the city, because he told Cecily and Miss. Prism that he had to visit his brother who was always getting into scrapes, which Algernon actually is. It was also ironic that when he questioned who his father was and it turned out that his father’s name was Earnest and he is named earnest which he wanted because Gwendolyn wanted to marry someone named Earnest. Everything that Jack said had turned out to be true without him actually realizing. He actually had a brother who lived in the city, his father’s name was Earnest and him being christened earnest was actually the right thing because his name was really Earnest. Wilde showed through the novel and the turn of events, and how no one actually got married that there really isn’t an “importance of being Earnest” and that earnest was really just a web of tangled lies, and earnest was just a trivial thing in order for Jack and Algernon to get Cecily and Gwendolyn, by lying and saying their name was earnest.

I hate sonnets

 I hate sonnets. I also hate the AP Lit Exam. I hate them both equally because there is a high chance that a sonnet will end up on the AP Lit Exam. I hate sonnets because I can never understand them, they are my kryptonite because I get under the impression that the sonnet is about some declaration or revelation about love, which most of them are, and all I really have to do is find out what it is about love that the speaker is trying to say, whether it is how the desire will grasp you and keep hold of you, or that the speaker's lover won't ever really dedicate herself to him. They also seem to be the same, or the ones we have read so far, that there is something that blocks the speaker from love. But all that is just the basic, very superficial understanding; It's how the structure and diction and imagery that describes why they speaker can't have what it is that he craves so desperately that doesn't make sense and frustrates me. It always takes me a minute to realize that a poem is actually a sonnet because I am so busy trying to make sure that I have enough time to really understand what it is that the author is trying to say about the speaker that I never actually realize that it is a sonnet. On top of all that I feel like I always misread the sonnet, like if you were to read it just line by line then you get one meaning, or if you read the whole thing it seems different, or if you divide it up by the octave and the sestet you feel like you are reading two different poems. They seem so hard to understand because those fourteen lines are jam packed with so much imagery and there are so many scenes that it seems so hard to understand what the speaker is trying to say. When we did our timed writing on the desire sonnet by Sir Philip, I remember looking at and establishing 2 things; one that the speaker was going through a rapid change of emotions in how desire had came to him, swept over him, and then eventually consumed him and secondly that the desire itself and what it felt like to have such a feeling. I could understand that but still I felt like something was off like there was more to the sonnet then I was actually understanding. With my thesis statement off, as always, I had a hard time setting up my paper the way that I wanted to, to accurately construct a well written essay even if was kind of off. I hate sonnets. So very much.

A Discovery

In reading Emma by Jane Austen, I have discovered a few things; one is that I hate Emma and that Austen uses Emma to represent that self-centered and self-fulfilling in all of us, which I learned during our seminar. Three things; I have already said this but I really hate Emma, I hate her because she is a character that Austen has made so that no one likes. Emma is a gossip which I already don’t like, but what really makes me upset is that she does things, but they are not for the person she does it for, she does it for herself. When Emma decides that she is going to match Harriet with Mr. Elton, she does it because she wants to bring Harriet up in society and then she can take the credit for it. So basically she masks self- interest with a seemingly altruistic demeanor. He thinks that by setting them up Harriet will be raised in her social standings and then Mr. Elton will then receive a wife who is very impressionable.  Not only that but she told Harriet to end it with Mr. Martin, whom she really actually loved and wanted to be with but Emma thought that wouldn't be in good taste for her reputation. Emma wanted the credit of putting someone else together so that she could obtain some sort of creditability and some sort of accomplishment in Highbury other than she is one of the highest ranked people in the town and also has a lot of money. She wanted to be accomplished like Jane Fairfax , who even though is in a lower social rank because she is poor and was adopted, basically, by the Churchills is way more pleasant and talented. Jane caught the eye of Mr. Knightly, who admires her deeply and whoever it was that sent the piano. Which is actually weird when you think about it because if you were going to send a present to your secret admirer why would it be something as big as a piano? I was thinking that you but something that is easier for a person to be able to bring through their own doors. I also see a little bit of Emma in myself, which makes it hard to hate her because by admitting that I don’t like her because she is selfish is to admit that I hate the general population, and myself because of the fact that we are a little selfish. Emma is that person, the one who will do whatever it takes to make herself look accomplished, but then there will always be a Jane Fairfax, one who will always beat us by half an inch and we will never be on the same level as her. Emma represents that person who is always the runner up. Like on American Idol there are always two people in the finale, one of them will be the runner up and the other will actually win it all. One person is the person that you think will win it all; they have the look of a star, the voice, and the personality to make it there, then when they announce the winner it’s the other person and you’re confused as to how that person one because they didn’t seem nearly as good, but in some way they are better and they are obviously more appealing to a majority. That is Emma and Jane Fairfax.

The lovely people of Highbury

I like Emma by Jane Austen, I find myself awkwardly laughing to myself while other people just look at me funny. Emma is funny, because she’s kind of a smart ass. The only thing that is a little confusing to me is the wording which makes it a little hard to follow but then once you get it, it makes sense. I also get confused on how they explain people’s ages, for example Mr. Knightly is described as a ”sensible man about seven or eight-and –thirty” I’m pretty sure that means 37 or 38 but that is just such a weird way to express that. But I digress. It’s funny how everything is so handsome and favorable, like the letter that Frank wrote to his father was such a “handsome letter” and no one had ever seen such a handsome letter. That doesn’t make sense, is handsome a good thing or a bad thing? And if it is a good thing what could he have possibly written that would make it such a handsome letter? He probably just said congratulations on his wedding. It seems as if everyone in this town of Highbury are all just great and favorable people; Miss Taylor, The Woodhouses, Mr. Knightly, Captain Weston, and the Churchills.It is also interesting how in chapter 3 when they are describing how Mr. Woodhouse is in control of his small circle of friends and often they come over but how, in turn, he hates big events. The craziest thing about the statement of him being in control is that in the first chapter Austen describes Emma as having all the control, especially over her father who will basically do anything that she asks him to do because she is the lady of the house. All the women are natural or plain or beautiful which just makes you happy and makes you feel warm and fuzzy. All the women are great and plain and refined and beautiful and then the only person who seems to have experienced hurt and pain was Emma and that was only because Miss. Taylor when she left and got married. But there are no problems everyone is happy in Highbury. Then there is Harriet Smith who is nice to look like that, once again fair, light, and plump, but then she is also has nice manners, such as everyone else in the story so far, but she has nothing important to say. I have noticed that while people are very nice looking in the story and have really nice manners they don’t have anything important to say. It’s kind of like tea time is all the time. The tea time is where they have pleasant conversations and make small talk but there isn’t any in depth conversation, because everyone is pleasant and frothy and light. Mostly yellows and pinks without the reds and blacks. Because it is all about appearances and the better the appearance the more superior you are and in Highbury it’s all about superior and upper class and the froth.

Attempt at short story

I am a bird. I am supposed to fly breath and discover a freedom that is so unfamiliar to the rest of us that you can’t even begin to understand the weightlessness I feel. But somehow you have not been to grasp that you cannot control me, you cannot cage me, but you feel as though you can. We have played this game of cat and mouse for a while, you think you can outsmart me, challenge me. You have, challenged me, for I will evade you, deceive you. This time I have won and now I have ended up in a dark hole. I am now alone waiting to fly again and be free but I can’t find my way out. There is a lake or it looks like a lake but it when I try to walk across it reaches up and grabs my foot and holds me. It pulls me down so I can go down and play with him and I can’t break free from him. So it seems this is my fate to go underneath and be trapped once again, in a world I don’t feel I necessarily belong. This world is different, it’s darker, and reeks of death. It is almost unnatural for a place to look like this and to be able to assume that there was once life or there’re is currently people living in such a wretched place. The ground shakes uncontrollably as if, it too, is ashamed that someone other than its own has to witness such a place, it brings a shiver in my spine and I feel my spine stiffen and crack. Looking up there is a whole and light shines through and washes my face and I taste a beautifulness that I almost forgot about. I need a way out, until I move and I realize he has changed me to floor so salvation seems unreachable. I will escape, I have to escape from a life in which I struggle to survive and continue on and die in death. It seems that he has taken pity on me, for he releases the chains but closes the whole, so we are back to the game of cat and mouse.What is wrong with society? Why are there duties that it seems I have to fill? Why can’t I be free to discover life? Why does it seem the life weighs more than death and the only escape is life? The only escape for me is freedom, the room to breathe and somehow something will chain me, trap me in a dungeon andsomehow I will break free and I will continue to fly and escape societal duties. For these will not hold or bind me, all chains can be broken or untangled. I am a bird and freedom is place of opportunity and discovery of both all the beauties and joys that the world has to offer after my escape from the dark and broken world that has so tried to suck me in.

Look the characters and beauty

Oh Clarissa, somehow she manages to turn the world inside out. In the heart of New York City, the old woman manages to find the small happiness the “endless, harsh punishments” and she stands out amongst it all. At 52 she might as well have been 22 because there is no denying her youth and liveliness. The chapter is named Mrs. Dalloway but that isn’t even her real name, her name is Clarissa Vaughn and she got the name “Mrs. Dalloway” from Richard. Richard assumed that because she was such a wonderful lady she didn’t need something plain and simple as “Vaughn” for it didn’t suit her. No, what she needed was something that would have people remember her, a name that had merit such as Jane Eyre, Isabel Archer, and Ana Karenina, great female figures in literature that represent independence, femininity, and strength, because even at 52 Clarissa was all of those things; love, independence, and strength. Clarissa was given a gifted fate, she was destined to happiness and love and success not disaster and failure. Where Clarissa was imaginative Richard was practical or seemingly obtuse he preferred wit (which we can connect to scenes in Hamlet where, Hamlet uses his wit and play on words to show superiority over others, such as Polonius when they have their little word war). Richard tells Clarissa “Beauty is a whore, I like money better.” Beauty and whore seem to be contrasting ideas, when one thinks of beauty they think of something alluring or something that captures the mind of people; captivating. The literal definition of beauty is “something that is appealing; an intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind.” When you think of a whore you think of a woman who has lowered her standards, degraded herself. The words dirty, seller, worthless, rascal come to mind but when one thinks of beauty you stop ponder, consider, take in, observe, enjoy. The ideas contrast then bring in the concept of money. Money is “ a type of currency used to cover the costs of goods or services.” They tie in with each other. Could we not see money as beauty? Is Richard trying to tell Clarissa to be more practical and realize that beauty is overrated and worthless and dirty, and that money, something that could take something beautiful and turn into a “whore” by turning it into something filthy and dirty, more practical? Or is he just witty? Being sarcastic to show how people no longer focus on beauty because they think it is overrated and perverted, so they settle for something that is supposed to be less perverted and clean like money, which can eventually consume a person turning them into something that could be considered dirty and filthy when greediness has taken over. There’s the part of Clarissa that too feels sluttish and dirtied, she tries and appreciates the days (beauty ) but feels herself to be the “sluttish widow” stuck in the triangle of her Louis and Richard. She is now the “money” which could be used for beauty and prosperityin the right hands but then in the wrong hands could also be considered dirty and filthy.

Body in the water

“The Hours” by Michael Cunningham is an interesting book; or rather the prologue is very interesting. It was slow at first but then you’re a little confused with what is going on because there is just so much detail, you feel as though you are standing at the edge of the bank, but still at a distance, watching the curiosity and the crinkled concentrated lines on her forehead slowly flatten out and peace and calm take over her features. You notice how she looks around questioningly and you watch with curiosity as she searches around the beach and she finds one stone that is “roughly the size of a pig’s skull (4).” You watch her approach the bank noticing how the water is actually a murky and disgusting yellow rather than the ugly brown, although in my personal opinion the yellow is worse. Dirty yellow just shows a more murky filth, tainted, or disturbed. As you ponder the disgustingness of the water you see Virginia start to walk towards the water, walking inside it with her shows still on and the water coming right up underneath her knees and you want to yell at her, tell her to come out but just as you’re about to you realize just how peaceful she is and how there is really no one who could really stop her at this moment so you pause and let her continue. For a moment you are at peace with her and then she is in the water and you don’t really pay attention because you figure that she can just swim back, but she doesn’t; she lets the current take her and she flows away and you don’t think that about that being the last time that you are going to see her, but it is. Cunningham has this way of writing where you feel as though you are standing near Virginia as she commits suicide, but then at the same time you’re in her thoughts and you can understand what this moment means to her. When she is standing in the water in her head she says “Here, then , is the last moment of true  perception (5)” to some it would seem as though a delusional woman just walked into disgusting water with all of her clothes on, to another it may seemed as though a woman was just in deep thought and she just didn’t understand how she ended up in the water, but if you really knew her you’d know that this was a phase a phase that she wouldn’t be able to escape from, oh she’s been here before, but this time she isn’t strong enough to break out of this phase and this is her way of helping everyone be happy again. The woman in the water is just a blank picture and anyone could make a story on she ended up there. Then it feels as though you are being yanked and you’re at Virginia’s house where her husband, Leonard, has just gotten home and the maid tells him that his wife has gone out and he doesn’t even realize that he is never going to see her again until he sees the note. The note that he will be happier without her and she was the happiest she had been when she was with him, he runs out the house and that is the end of the prologue and the chapter starts. And you wonder about how Virginia got there in the first place and what happens to Leonard. It’s weird the Cunningham opens the book with a suicide.

For faith??

“Faith” is a fine invention

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see—
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency. 

Emily Dickinson

In “’Faith’ is a fine invention,” Emily Dickinson explores the vulnerability of faith through the more tangible aspect of man and invention.

Faith is the idea of believing in something that is not necessarily tangible but rather an idea or concept that will help pull through or deal with a situation. Dickinson describes faith as a “fine invention” suggesting that it could be a tactic that “Gentlemen” create when they see that things aren’t exactly going the way they should “in an Emergency”.  Faith becomes a fine invention when men are able to see where they are in a situation but then Dickinson cuts the sentence showing an unfinished thought which produces the questions of what it is that faith helps the gentleman see. The microscopes seem to take a higher rank than faith. Microscopes serve as invention for finer analyzing.Dickinson contrasts the microscope and faith, where “microscopes are prudent” meaning that they can be more careful or precise in predicting the future and that faith isn’t given the choice between the two in an emergency.  In the poem, “Gentleman”, “Microscopes” and “Emergency” are all capitalized showing a sense of importance of an Emergency where Gentleman must use a Microscope to better predict the outcome of the emergency, because faith alone will not help in seeing the future of the emergency but just the belief that they will make it through the emergency, but then how can a microscope really help in a emergency? Microscopes would easily be thrown aside in the time of an emergency rather than faith, but the poem suggests that microscopes are at a higher standard than faith. Dickinson questions what the Gentleman will use in an emergency will they use microscopes, which symbolize fact or practicality or faith a conjured concept when they can see that they will make it through. The first line shows a sense of vulnerability. “Faith is a fine invention,” faith is not only a belief that something will happen but also the vulnerability in the belief that something has to happen. When the Gentleman can see, faith becomes a fine invention, when Gentleman, proper, dignified men, are vulnerable faith is a “good, just, or a good choice” for an invention. Structurally it is interesting that that the second line doesn’t come before the first, so that it was “When Gentleman can see-/ “Faith is a fine invention” to show that when Gentleman are no longer blind and everything is clear and they have become more knowledgeable, that faith is a good virtue to have. For the last two lines it is interesting that Dickinson says, “But Microscopes are prudent/ in an Emergency” rather than, “but in an Emergency/ Microscopes are prudent.” The structure of the poem Dickinson’s way, sets the tone of endearing saying that when the men have become more knowledgeable that faith is clearer and allows more focus but then the tone shifts to  a more knowledgeable, superior , knowing tone when she says that in an emergency, microscopes are more helpful as if they have discovered through personal experience.

And we're back :)

I love poetry. I think it’s the best form of expressional writing. There is so much that you can get from poetry and the best thing about it is that the writer doesn’t have a specific meaning. The meaning of the poem is left up to the interpretation of the reader. You can get so much out of poetry. “Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself” – WilliamHazlitt. Poetry is universal, it transcends across the world. Anyone can read a poem, a sonnet, a villanelle, or a free verse and interpret it however they want and make it personal for them. Poetry connects us and intertwines us all to not just each other but to nature and the world around us. The purpose of poetry is to convey an important life moment that could either is insignificant or a very big moment like graduation, or being potty trained or your first day of college, but the moments are all things that everyone can relate too. It’s as if in the entire poetry library has poetry that is specific to everyone; every feeling and every moment you can connect with. “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese” – G.K. Chesterton. I think what Chesterton is trying to say here is that poets will talk about almost anything. The corner of every topic and moment in life turned. Cheese represents the simple, basic topics that poets don’t talk and it almost doesn’t make sense that the all the complicated events or dark topics, or the life changing moments they talk about but very basic things they don’t talk about. Mary Oliver talked about walking through a swamp; it makes you wonder just how many people can really relate to that? How many people have walked through a swamp other than the people who live in the Everglades? Something so basic like food, which satisfies our physiological needs and won’t allow us to do anything else until those needs are met, is very interesting. Poetry kind of reminds me of short stories, in the way that we look at the meaning and the angle at which you interpret it. Both and poetry has a meaning that the author or poet had in mind when they were writing the work, but the meaning that you and I have when reading the work is not only different between the two of us but also the poet or writer. The difference that short stories have from poetry is the meaning is more solid in short stories. There is still interpretation but you’re more guessing of what happens next or what happens first, depending on how it is written, but you’re mainly focusing on sequence because the meaning is clearer. On the other hand poetry is more informal and it’s the meaning that is left to interpretation. The reader could ultimately discover a completely different poem with the same words that the poet uses. The similarity between the two is that there is a lot of reading in between the lines with both.