My view of literature and what I learned throughout the course.

     I dare not say that my view of literature has changed but rather it has shifted form. For it is not that I view literature in a different way than before but rather, my eyes have been opened and my understanding of it has evolved. I have now learned techniques to analyze a piece of literature that I did not have before I started this course and that will help me in the years to come when I finally move unto grad school. For as long as I can remember I have been reading about all sorts of things, from world issues, to medicine discoveries, to murder cases and fantasy stories. It was always to my understanding that a well-rounded knowledge it is best, instead of just concentrating in one field in particular.  I must also say that thanks to this class I can now be a little more responsible when it comes to meeting deadlines and how important it is to revise your writing many times before you turn it in.

     The class was incredibly charming and filled with different types of learning dynamics that it made it a sort of comfort zone when you arrived and the teacher was always very attentive to her students questions which made the experience all the more pleasant. I do dare say that most of my colleagues were pretty much irresponsible when it came to reading or doing the assignment appointed for the next class even if it was only just reading a short story, and though I am referring to some of my classmates I don’t mean all but I do include myself in them because there was once or twice (okay maybe thrice) in which I didn’t do an assignment. I do not blame the teacher for this though; of course that is not her responsibility. The fault lies in the preposterous way students nowadays attend to class. Totally unprepared and with a downright shameful behavior at that when they are at the classroom.

     We are the nations future and as such we must take charge in giving it our all to learn the things that are being taught to us by our teachers. It is not a matter of passing a course or not, the importance is applying the skills learned in the course in our professional and daily lives. If we continue to be ignorant there is no way we can ever succeed in anything we set our minds to.

P.S. The blog helped a lot to broaden my English vocabulary and elevate it in new heights and I thank the teacher for it.

What was your favorite piece of literature covered in class? Why?

My favorite piece of literature covered in class was "The Lottery". It is so because of the sheer volume of ignorance, violence and intolerant views upon the different views of the story. The use of how the suspense rises slowly and the repetitive use of the black box make you want to read it until you finally realized (for which it is not really described) what the black box is used for. By then you know where the story is going and you cannot sit tightly until you finish it completely. It is an astonishing piece of work that describes the way violence happens all around us yet we are so busy that we often do not care about it. All over the news we see acts of violence and we are so basked in it that we now take it as normal behavior of human beings when it is so much more. Humans are not supposed to be violent beings, they are supposed to be rational ones, but every now and then the law of the jungle takes over our minds and we find ourselves loosing our conscience hold and breaking the boundaries of what is right and wrong. This doesn’t necessarily happen in violence alone. This happens in every day interactions as well, for we think ourselves as tolerant but tolerance I’m afraid is just a pretty word for arrogance, because because it is tolerant the person who believes he is right and grasped by the handle standard. We see all these things in the story and that is why it is my favorite out of all the other discussed in the class.

Born into Brothels (Documentary)

After watching the documentary I can honestly say that I’ve got more appreciative of my life and where I was born. The hardships these people have to go through every day just to get by is totally inconceivable to me. How a mother can sell her own child to a stranger just so she can buy provisions for her family is totally unreal to me, and I am not a parent myself. This tragedy has been going on for century and people want to help but when do we know when it is helping and when it is crossing the line between two different types of cultures. Well some people do know how to help these people like the teacher who would do anything to at least help some of these people so that they can live a normal and healthy life. Yet it is sometimes not enough, for sending these children to schools does not guarantee their success in life, they are still bound by their parents rule, and we cannot compete there because it would be turning help, into force. I honestly wished that these people would educate themselves more but with what? With so little resources how does one educate on what is right and what is wrong? When the necessities for survival are so much higher than the necessities of telling right from wrong. It saddens me to see these children who are bred for the purpose of bringing in money to the family no matter the cost, and it saddens me that they know what the future lies in stores for them and it is not a diploma for a university. This world needs to change; it needs to change fast but that in their lies the problem. Change does not happen at a fast pace, but rather in small details. Either way these children need to be relieved from their duties as harbingers of money and looked upon as they are, kids, or this cycle of using one another will never end.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

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     “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” (Einstein). This is best portrayed in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” the author portrays the rigorous cultural traditions that make way to an ignorant and unjust society. The story starts with the sentence “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” Giving the reader a false pretense of what the end of the future will be. Even the title of the story is riddled with irony because in our modern society a lottery is viewed as a chance to win something that would change your life in a positive way. 

     Jackson also implies that this town on which these people live in are not very bright when she says “Dickie Delacroix-- the villagers pronounced this name "Dellacroy” this is known because in the French language the last name Delacroix is pronounced “Delacrua”, giving the reader the idea that the people who live in that town chained by the cultural traditions are not bright enough to understand that their tradition of wishing for new crops is a pagan, and ignorant one. When the author tells us “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago”, it describes just how old and without general basis this tradition is, and this is generally emphasizes when Jackson says “had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born.” Another allegory which describes the way generations mindlessly follow a tradition is when Jackson says “having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood

that had been used for generations.” Where the author gives the reader an idea of just how long this ritual has been going long, and the reader can imply that it had been in use even before the invention of the printing press (which was in the fifth teen century).

     There is also the fact of how Jackson portrayed the emotional imbalance of the people; of how the dearest of friends can become the worst enemies in a matter of seconds. This is given to the reader of how at the beginning Mrs. Delacroix was kind and warm to Mrs. Hutchinson, yet at the end, when her family picked up the slip of paper with a black dot on it and Mrs. Hutchinson was screaming of how unfair it was, Mrs. Delacroix shouts “Be a good sport Tessie” knowing very clearly of the fate that awaited one of the members of the family. This imbalance is what keeps people from making a connection in our modern world and it is the main responsible for the atrocities that give way into violence and ignorance.

    There is no place for violence in this world, and there shouldn’t be a place for blindly following traditions without asking us “Is it worth it?” “Does it follow our own moral code?” The creed of the Buddhist states “Do not believe in anything simply because tradition says so, even though many generations of people born in many places have believed in it for many centuries.” People should live by the way they truly feel in their hearts, and that it goes accordingly to the morals each and everyone of us has. When we change the society in which we live in, then we can truly change the way man lives on this earth.

"I Found It" by Fadwa Tuqan

In this poem we see an extraordinary use of imagery. From the “green and blossoming” flora on a “radiant day” of April, to a “vivid summer day” basked in the sun radiant light, to “wailing storms” and finally “wrapping it with night after night” as the finale of the poem. We see the four seasons of the year carefully placed in order as he advances in his journey to find himself. From the first expectation being bright and vivid, to the first realization being a bit damp, and finally achieving his goal in the cold winter night on a grave. Perhaps we all would find out true selves in a grave, for people only take of their mask when they are but at the final moments of their lives. Those last minutes that actually depict what a human being is like and how those skeletons that we try to keep safely hiding away in our closets and shown as an open book and we finally get to see the other side of the coin. There is an old saying that goes “Never judge a book by it’s cover” and I find it applies in everyday life. You may think you have found a great person when deep inside lives a monster, and you may think you have found a monster when deep down it is but a gentle soul. All humans should take time to find themselves, or they will forever live hiding their demons in the attic and fighting with all their might to never let them out.

"Examination at the Womb-Door" by Ted Hughes

The symbolism in this poem is astonishing. It associates every part of the living human body and gives it ownership to not the bearer of these parts but of Death. It is often realized that the only way to reach solace is true death because after all death is the most certain thing we have right after being born. The author is describing every part of his body as a sort of messy, scrawny, scorched and meaningful existence can only find true comfort by reaching it’s true master, and that is Death itself. Yet at the end of the poem we see the last line stating that he is stronger than Death when nothing else is. It can be implied that the author was speaking to Death itself as he last mentions “Pass, Crow” and crow is a well known symbol of death throughout literature, but not only that but of how calm he speaks. As if he knows that his time will come but it will not be today. J.K. Rowling wrote on one of the Harry Potters book “It’s the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” And I couldn’t agree more, but because Death itself does not incite fear upon us, it is the uncertainty of it, the whole mystery behind it, and we as rational beings cannot phantom to go somewhere we do not understand.

 

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

Here we see a classic tale as old as time, the resentment of a father and the regretful behavior of a son who in his own way did not understand the hardships his father was going through. The undeniable distant relationship between the two, and how it was never mended nor considered until it was too late. A word of gratitude goes a long way, yet in out busy daily lives we forget to exercise the simplest forms of manners. It is but a word, a whisper and yet it is the most difficult thing a human can probably say. Maybe it is because in our minds, saying thanks is a form of accepting that we are not capable of doing things by ourselves, and we find that as a form of weakness, yet nothing can be farther from the truth. For asking for help and actually being grateful is a sign of strength not weakness. The acceptance that you cannot do something alone is an act of pure valor and it should not be diminished as a simple trait of frailty. Learning to appreciate what you have, in the now and present is what would make us live in prosperity and enjoy life to the fullest. Because if we keep looking into the future how are we ever going to enjoy the present?