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

-->

     “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?

“The Falling Girl” by Dino Buzzatti

The story depicts a girl named Marta who falls willingly or accidentally from the highest skyscraper in the city. It is amazing how at the beginning of the story she is but a nineteen-year-old girl, yet at the end she is an old woman. Perhaps the author was trying to convey the quickness in which live easily goes by. People nowadays only take interest in what’s new and exciting meaning that people took interest in the girl when she started falling because she was young and vibrant and then we tend to through the old aside, referring to as how the people in the lower floor don’t really care for the people that are about to die at the pavement in front of their own building. It is also implied in the story that everything new and wonderful, can become dull and boring if copied, or reproduced enough times as we see when all these other girls start jumping off the skyscraper and suddenly the girl who started the trend is no longer the center of attention. There is also a hint of the mathematical paradox the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea spoke of, in which it is described that an arrow would never reach the tree it was intended to hit because it has to cover half the distance to get to it’s destination, so the arrow slows its velocity the closer it gets to its goal. We see these mainly when it is described how Marta first fell with great speed and then started to slow down, as she got closer to the ground. The way people take their life for granted and just waste it on everyday simplicities such as fashion, attention or just doing nothing makes the human the only animal in the world to waste the time it is given unto this Earth. We may be the predominant species on the Earth with a rational mind, but we are also the dumbest creature on it. 

"The Question No One Would Answer" by Nawal El Saadawi

After reading this story I must say I was tremendously appalled, to hear of such intolerant and ghastly ways, alas I am but an observer and I cannot force my opinions unto others, even if I think it is wrong because what is wrong for me, might be right for someone else. Living in the 21^st century, after the women’s right movement, we still see the segregation that women must deal with everyday of their lives and this is in our society, but nothing compares to what goes on in the East. The simple thought of female genital mutilation makes my skin crawl, and awakens every nerve end in my body as I try to conceive, to find the reason behind these heinous acts. I suppose by now you can deduce where my loyalty lies in this case, yes I am against it, but not because it is a different culture than my own, but because willingly and hopefully unknowingly these people are creating margins in which they separate the women and the man as to entire different beings. It seems absolutely preposterous to my western civilization mind that these rituals in which they cut off the clitoris of a girl, not even a women, but a girl is not something that’s frowned upon in their cultures. It is only achieving the dominant thought that has plagued humanity for centuries that man is above woman, and that women’s only role in this world is to give pleasure, to bear children and to raise them. It is forcing the man’s masculinity unto the women by making them nothing more than tools of pleasure. As I finished reading this story I wondered to myself, why does humanity take one step forward and two steps back? It feels like every time we try to progress in some way we  retrogress in another, and until we learn to advance as a whole being, we will never achieve true equality. 

"Pizza for Warsaw, Torte for France" by Slavenca Drakulic

The story portrays the differences between communism and capitalism, by comparing the bright and “uncomfortably rich” nation known as USA and the countries in Europe still living under communism iron rule. In communism there is no incentive to strive, no real reason for workers to give it there all in their line of work because people are paid equally no matter the effort or enthusiasm the person has. People are treated equally and the government controls everything, from the health and educational care, to the prices of the food you see on the supermarkets. Since there isn’t any initiative to strive to produce better efficiency for a company it instills laziness unto the people because, why should I work harder than my partner if we are going to get paid the same? However we live in a society who exercises capitalism instead of communism. Now capitalism is actually the imperfect answer to the inefficiency communist have instilled unwillingly upon their citizens, but at a price. While capitalisms valor hard work, initiative and creativity, it is also the cradle of corruption, for by focusing on the individual progress of ones life instead of the progress of a nation, we are injecting through eyes, mouth, ears and veins the true enemy of progress and that is selfishness. There is no right way when the right only goes to the few who can rise above society, for in this land there is a new God, it’s called money and justice answers to it’s every whim like a lap dog. As Rousseau once said, “Instead of bettering man, we must first better the society.” What good does it do to change man if the seed of it’s corruption is never changed?

"And We Sold The Rain" by Rosario Santos

After reading the short story "And We Sold The Rain" by Rosario Santos, I can honestly say that it makes it absolutely inconceivable from a point of view of a “developed” country what some “undeveloped” countries would do to get money. The story was actually based upon real life events known as the Water War in Bolivia. The story depicts a crippling town who is about to go under unless they find a way to make easy money, so they privatize the towns water works and give the rights of the rain water to a sultan. The sultan is none other than the head of the Aguas del Tunari firm. Although in the story the people leave the town in real life is much more different, for a series of protests of over 2,000 took place to throw out the new regime instilled by the government. It goes without saying that desperate times call for desperate measures, and even though it may be inconceivable to us, corruption is a part of our daily lives. More so in countries with little to no resource, because most of the population is uneducated on their rights and how to make the government exercise them. The governments of these nations know of this and take advantage of it. We live in a time were greed and malice is a common trait among humans, and it is often too late before one can know that a fellow human suffers it, for how can one conceive a disease that is not visible through our five senses? The answer lies in whether we want to see what lies beyond the curtain or hide like cowards behind the wall that block us from the one truth.

"Paper" by Catherine Lim

The short story paper is about greed and how a terrible sickness it can be to those who do not warn it off before it sets in your mind and soul and takes over your daily life.  The story is set in Singapore and it depicts the ambitious ways of the young people in that time who only seem to value material gain. The greed, which takes over the lives of Tay Soon and Yie Liang ultimately, costs the life of Tay Soon and the sanity of Yie Lang. People often associate money and material possession with happiness and joy, these are the great lies of the world. The world portrayed in the story and the world we live in nowadays is no different. Humanity has, since the creation of the monetary system and civilization, always took advantage of the poor and weak to gain more money and lands in a quest to be the richest and most powerful human on the face of the Earth. What the don’t realize is that when we die we are all turned to same thing, dust, and that no matter the virtues we acquired in life, and in death it is but a dream, as Shakespeare stated in his famous speech of Hamlet “To be, or not to be”. We live our lives, much like Tay Soon, working and lusting for money which is only paper that is worthless when we die, and the last image of the story of the burning house made of paper is the irony of which what was most precious to him in life, money, was something as fragile and easily burned as paper. In all to better ourselves as humans we must first change the structure and society we live in.

"I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen

The story is about a single mother trying to raise her children during the time of the Great Depression. It tells us how difficult was just to get by let alone raise 5 children. The narrator of the story tells us how hard it was to raise her children but her voice seems of regret, as she feels guilty on how her first child, Emily, was brought up. When she looks at Emily she feels a kind of remorse she does not feel for her other children, probably because she didn’t show her the affection and love that she constantly remained herself to show the others. It was her first child and being the first child of a young mother, she did not have the experience or knew anything she knows now. The narrator describes us how she worked for six years of Emily’s young life and how this affected her overall development, this is reassured when she compares her second child, Susan, and Emily, as to being just one year apart in development despite being the two having a five year difference. The story describes the mother-daughter relationship and how difficult were the years to brought up a child in the Great Depression when the economy went downhill, and before World War II. 

Ultimately the narrator indicates that society has to take the responsibility of forcing young mother into a difficult task of raising children in that era and for giving her the horrible guidance they told her when they said to send Emily to a sanatorium. The narrator cannot accept the mistakes she made by not following her own instincts instead of what experts said and this is portrayed when she used book to nurture Emily and when she did not have the necessary will to go against what others were telling her to do. If she so accepts that she was wrong then she would have to face the consequences of her actions but in blaming everyone but herself she is in a way escaping from feeling a lot more than remorse when she looks at Emily, she is trying to escape feeling guilty and mournful of what she made Emily go through by her lack of parenting and this is what she fears the most, to be told that she has failed as a parent.