He's only a tad bit innocent

I'm almost a little parts of me that wants to dislike Grendel because he is in fact a monster but then the other half is sad for him because he is just trying to fit in with the men so that maybe hell be apart of something. Grendel is obviously a monster who is not apart of the human world but rather threatens thems and terrorizes them. There was the time where he got his foot caught in between to the two tree trunks and that was where he first discovered man. In discovering man he seems that they and him are not that much different from each other in that they both speak the same language. What I'm confused about is whether or not Grendel is actually talking. We are reading his thoughts but we haven't actually heard hi, communicate. In the beginning when his foot gets stuck he tries to talk to them but they don't understand him or that he is trying it attack them or when he sees the dead man outside and he picks him up and throws him over his shoulder and runs into the meadhall and yells out" Mercy!Peace! Friend!" hes almost trying to ask for their forgivensee trying to connect with them but theynrejct him and think thatbhe is trying to attsck them.So then you begin to think that the whole story is just his thoughts, he has told us that he speaks the same language as the humans but then at the same time when he has tried to communicate with them it's not the same language . It is possible that he could just speak like his mother (she is always saying drool , drool) but thinks like the humans do. Which would make his mind very sophisticated. Then what confuses me even more is that when he is hiding in the forest and he talks about how Hrothgar has violence and shame etched into his face and Unferth is asleep but guarding the meadhall and he is just watching them then someone in the forest is asking who is there and he says " the Destroyer" it seems as if the priest can understand him and he can understand what Grendel is saying to him which makes no sense to me. I don't think that Grendel is necessarily evil, I think that he , like Adam and eve , has been influenced by evil to embrace his evil side. The evil side we all posess but must be pressured so that it comes out because before he was curious at the world and angry that was why he was attacking the meadhall but then he comes into his role after talking to the dragon and becomes "the Destroyer"

The red sweater

 For the prose timed writing essay that we had to write about the short story, Eleven. Elevwn is about a little girl in class who is unable to communicate with her teacher that a lost sweater isn’t hers. The sweater is really ugly and smells funny and the teacher is quite certain that it is hers until she is told otherwise. In the beginning the girl is reflective in that she thinks that as people age we don’t know the difference in each year as we get a little older. She goes on to mention how she is turning eleven but she doesn’t feel eleven. She also describes how even though we get older we still repeat actions from the years younger. She compares aging with an onion or the rings of a tree. Ad we grow older we start off in the very center of the tree and then we make our way outward but then an event or test will stop us from continuing outward and moving on to the next ring, but will in fact make us revert to the ring that we have already passed. Then the teacher comes to her table and tells her that the sweater is hers and the narrator says how because the teacher is older and she is only eleven that the teacher must be very wise. This goes along with the idea that as you do get older you are creating more rings on the tree, that represents your growth in age, but also provides more opportunity for you to revert back into your childhood. I looked at this prose through the prospective that this was an internal battle between maturity and childhood. The girl was trying to find her way to maturity by it being her birthday she figured that because there were no physical changes she would just have adult- like actions. This was  a failed test on her journey to maturity because the  red sweater was the test to prove that she would be able to handle the situation in a adult matter and continue on her journey to adulthood and have less moments where she would revert back into her childhood . The red sweater isn’t just a red sweater but it symbolizes the test that could potentially stop us from maturing. Once we have passed our red sweater then we may continue to explore the world while being on the road to maturity. Because the girl, whose name I think might be Rachel, failed the red sweater test and cried she had regressed back into her childhood making it seem that the journey of her maturity was almost nonexistent. She went back to the time where she was three and sat and cried in front of her class. So now she must start over and prep herself to find the road to maturity and begin again. This ending shows that when we, as people, fail our red sweater test we must start over again , kind of like going from that childhood moment and starting again.

Under the ice

"Krogstad: under the ice perhaps? Down into that cold, black water? Then spring comes and you float up again hideous, can't be identified, hair all gone (1206)." there is a period of time where everyone seems to be the most important, where they are noticed by either masses of people, a few people, or just one person but still they are noticed. Nora is noticed for being the doll, the quite woman who is to be seen and not heard. She plays the role very well. The realm in which she lives in is the dollhouse and there is nothing in there that separates her, nothing that other woman will see as right for a woman in her day.so she sinks back farther into the dollhouse and when it comes time for the rebirth (the spring).  To happen then we grow and change into our mature selves but by then no one cares who or what we are.
"Nora: well there are people you love, and people you'd rather be with (1203)." nora doesn't love Torvald, but can we necessarily say that she loves rank either? She is doing what her father has taught her is best for herself financially. From one rich guy and handed straight to another. But Nora wants someone who really understands her, listens to what she needs and she knows that she can't get that from Torvald because they have never really talked, never gotten to understand each other. She is saying that in this time people don't end up with the people they love, they end with the people who it is most confident and who society will approve of with disregards to actual love and  love, feeling and emotions.
The characters in a A Doll House   by Henrik Ibsen are hard to understand at first you think that everyone acts one way or their personality is one way but it turns out it really isn't. Originally you think that Nora is naive and innocent, that she can't seem to do anything real but please her husband, but then you find out that she has this huge secret and it turns out she is a lot sneaker and deceptive then you had originally anticipated. The plot, I believe, was centered around The Wonderful and that Nora really wanted to get out if the dollhouse from a long time ago but she couldn't. Secretly everyone wants The Wonderful but not like Nora did. She knew that eventually the secret would come out her hope was that when it did, Torvald would stand and and try and take the blame for everything and then she would let everyone know that it was really her and Torvald was just trying to take the fall for it, soon she wouldn't be able to handle the burden so she would kill herself. Most females want the security of knowing that the person their with will throw themselves into the raging fire tin order to douse the flames that she has so created. Also tthere is the setting, the fact that the play takes place over three days coincides with the birth, the life and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This play is also broken up into three scenes, which we see three different sides of Nora. In the first scene we see the doting and loving and following side of Nora, the wife who does whatever her husband tells her to and only and answers to him. In the second act we see Nora as nervous, she has told Kristine her secret and now she knows it is only a matter of time before everyone else finds out about it. She is frantic in trying to keep Torvald in the dark about the secret, as to not lead to the breakdown of the dollhouse. But she is hoping and praying that when the secret does come out the wonderful will happen. Then in the third act she is almost indifferent  like she knows the inevitable will happen and is going to happen. She knows she must leave to find herself and explore the world.

What's so wonderful?

I am unsure of how exactly I feel about Nora and Torvald in "A Doll House" by Henrik Ibsen . In this play Ibsen exploits the  true dynamic of a family. He uses the Helmers to show the audience how superficial and appearance based one family is, but how their "doll house" is slowly breaking down. Throughout the play I've noticed a few things for one thing the dollhouse itself. In a way the dollhouse reminds me of a glass house in that it is delicate and fragile. For the Helmers  the dollhouse is a game of pretend with Torvald being the owner and Nora as the doll. The pretend that what they have is real so others will think what they have is beautiful and be envious of their happiness. Torvald likes to show Nora off as his carefully made up doll, in which he controls and she will follow his lead. This idea of the dollhouse as the glasshouse is that the dollhouse must be kept beautiful, free of debt, and pure for that is what makes a perfect home, not loyalty, honesty, and love. But imagine a glasshouse; it's one of those things that if set up correctly it is beautiful to look at and looks as though it has been so carefully thought out that you don't want destroy it. But there's a problem with a glasshouse it's contents are completely visible to everyone, there are no secrets. Also as perfectly and carefully as it has been designed it takes one sharp enough thing from the outside to strike it at the right spot then the whole glasshouse comes down, and we know that broken glass is painful. So when this house breaks down everyone inside is affected. Let me take the whole glasshouse metaphor and apply that to dollhouse. Torvald prides himself that his home is debt-free, because he says that a beautiful home is not beautiful if it is not free. He has built thus house to be completely superficial to give the presence of something real. For those who look at the Helmer's home they see a very loving home, children, and two madly in love parents but it's all an act. Then there is Kristine and Krogstad, who can see the truth. They see the disconnect that lies inside the dollhouse, they see the lack of understanding between man and wife, but they are outsiders. They don't fit in with the dollhouse. The
letter  Krogstad leaves in the mailbox is the rock that hits the glasshouse. Once Torvald reads the note, and realizes how Nora has committed forgery everything has changed. And now the glasshouse is breaking affecting Torvald , Nora and the kids in the process. This is where the idea of the wonderful is supposed to kick in. The wonderful is the response Nora thought Torvald was going to have once he found out what she did. She thought he would take the blame for her actions and handle the situation and she,in turn, would not let him then she would've killed herself , but they would have developed a true family. But that's not what happens at all. Torvald realizes he will have succumb to Krogstads threat . Nora can't believe this and eventually leaves.

Paper oh paper, what have I done wrong?

So in my paper about the short story “Fiesta” I understand what I did wrong and how I can better improve my paper. First thing is that i need to improve on my academic voice. One thing I struggle with when I am writing a paper is I want it to be as relatable as possible; I want people to feel as though they have really connected with me through my paper, as if they have heard my voice. That is not necessarily a bad thing but what is bad about that is that when I try to make my paper easier to relate to I lose my academic voice, I’m no longer identifying the characters by their names, but I start saying kid or people. When I depersonalize my characters makes my paper less academic. Secondly I tend to go off on tangents; when I make a thesis that is the idea or thought or argument I plan on writing my paper on. When I actually start writing my paper the paragraph normally falls right along with the thesis statement, but in this paper I start to fall away from the thesis. I think that in this particular paper my thesis is not strong enough to cover what it is that I am trying to prove in my paper. Then there are my grammatical errors; not ending quotes the way they should be ended and putting commas in the right place which stem from the lack of proofreading my essay before it gets turned in. Another issue is when I made a claim then went on to try and incorporate my quotation to support my claim rather than completely dissecting that quotation so that it fit into my claim and supported the thesis I more summarized what was happening in the story around that quotation rather than analyzing how that quotation fits into my paper based off of the literary element that I was supposed to be talking about.  Summarizing is OK to point but it should just be adding detail to my claim rather than fully explaining. So I really need to focus on analyzing the text. Not just analyzing though but working on including more text support. I think that when I am actually discussing a novel or short story in a seminar I use more text support and dissect the text more than when I am actually writing a paper about the novel or short story because sometimes I feel like I am using so much text that my whole paper is the novel rather than the dissection. I need to work on balancing using the text and dissecting the text. The last thing that Mrs. Clinch pointed out in my paper was to watch for awkward and wordy constructions; what I have noticed in this paper is that my sentences are either too long or awkwardly put together, I need to work on clearly organizing each sentence, shorten them add in commas, colons, semicolons, etc. by being more concise in my sentence I will be able to better produce stronger, clearer papers.

Who are ya dude?

Most of what I write is me fighting with myself on different issues such as themes, imagery, symbolism, or reoccurring motifs that I have noticed in the novels we have been reading in class. They are normally based off of ideas and discussions that we have in class or something that I’ve discussed in a group that I really want to elaborate on. This post won’t be that different but there are two different things I want to discuss in this blog; what I have noticed so far and what I have read of All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren up until this point and my college essays (since that is something that is really important right now).

Firstly who is the king and who are all his men? This would sound like a stupid question but when you really think about it, it makes you wonder. So far I have gathered that this book is about a politician, Willie Stark, he already has the title of “The Boss” but where would he get the name “The King?” Then that leads to another question; who are all his men? Would that mean be people such as Jack and the rest of the posse? Why, because they are Willie Stark? They are his every decision, his every political move, his every statement, wardrobe, they are his source and friend. They are what make Willie, Willie. But then i suppose that kind of makes sense, a king is more of a representative symbol then an actual person of influence. I’m not saying that they aren’t influential just not nearly as influential as a president. The thing about kings is that they think they are in control like they are the puppeteers but really they are the puppets.  Then there is the whole thing about Jacks relationship with his mom. Well I for one thing that it’s a tad creepy. There’s no way that a woman of her age, should get excited like an innocent little girl when her son comes home. It’s weird. Then the couch scene when Jack’s head is in her lap and she is rubbing his face, I connected that to the end of the chapter where they are talking about Lucy and how she wanted to hold Tom back, I think that deep down Jack’s mom is trying to hold Jack back so that he can be in the position of lover whenever she is in-between lovers. Lastly you start to wonder how important Jack is. Who is he really? For someone who was working on his PHD how did he end up underneath serving someone like Willie? I just wonder so much about Jack.

Now college, they ask you all these hypothetical questions where you have to write your response in 32,000 characters. Some of the questions ask you to tell those more about yourself and your unsure as to which angle you should take. Do you say too much? Is what I have already said enough? Too informative?Did I give enough details? That’s the kind of essay I’m writing and I know I want it to be moving but I don’t quite know how to go about that without feeling like I have shared too much. Food for thought I suppose.

Reality vs fantasy.......or not

In what I have read of All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, which only two chapters (so far), there is this theme of reality vs. fantasy. The narrator of the story,  Jack Burden, seems to be traveling between these two worlds that are both fantasy and what's actually happening as he sets the scene of what is currently going and by going backwards to explain how the current events came to be. But Jack isn't the only one who bounces between the two worlds; the main character, Willie Stark, seems to be also. But before I continue I'm going to veer from the topic a little to vent about the things I have noticed about this book; firstly Warren introduces the main character and the minor characters but as you continue reading, you realize that the main character and the narrator are two different people, now that isnt that unusual but in the way that Warren writes this novel it just sounds a little weird. Secondly because you realize that narrator is a different person, there is a period of time where you're wondering who the main character is and why it's taking Warren so long to introduce him. Jack Burden thinks of himself as the wallpaper, the one who is constantly forgotten and the fact that Warren takes so long to introduce makes me feel as though Burden isn't as important to the story as the other characters , when he actually is. But i digress so anyways back to reality vs. fantasy. I see the theme as less of reality vs fantasy but more of real vs. fake. For Jack the life that he wished he had vs. the one he's lived and is living is the difference between real and fake. For example Jack says, "I was so much in love with her that I lived in a dream. In that dream my heart seemed to be ready to burst, for it seemed that the whole world was inside it swelling to get out and be the world. But that summer came to an end. Time passed and nothing happened that we had felt so certain at one time would happen (Warren 39-40)." In Jack's dreams ( the fantasy world) things between him and Anne  are perfect. She is no longer a little girl but now she has grow into a woman. But in this world both of their feelings run wild and then would meet at the same time , but in reality what was only a fling wont go to be anymore than that . In Burden's fantasy he is happy have his girlfriend but in the real world he doesn't have her because they don't last after that summer. then there is the idea of change in that when Jack returns back to Mason City everything is different than how he remembers it so that it really can't be real " they ain't real, I thought as I walked down the hall, nary one. But I knew they were. You come into a strange place , into a town like Mason City, and they don't seem real but you know they are (Warren 57)."  When Jack thinks about the town he thinks of the people , the people he sees now can't be real because they aren't the same people that he used to know, there's no way that they can be different even though it is common for the people of Mason city like that, in his fantasy world the people are different they are who they used to be. Then there is Willie Stark who is the Boss, his personality fits right in with real vs. fake. It's as if Stark is many different people; his fake side is when he is politician mode, he does whatever he can to appeal to the masses, to make them feel like there is some common ground between them. Even Lucy knows that this isn't his true self. But there is also his real self the self that isnt politician mode like when he is talking to Lucy, his pappy, or his posse. The way to notice the difference is in his voice,"In his old voice, his own voice. Or was that his voice? Which was his true voice, which one of all the voices, you would wonder (Warren 10)." his changes in his voice show the real self but also show the fake self. Most people who know can't decipher which one is real or which voice is fake. He uses so many different personalities that it's almost hard to tell who is Willie Stark reall.