"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.