Explanation: The reason I chose this blog post for depth is because I used a secondary source in order to further analyze a poem. I first wrote an analysis based on what I observed from the poem, but I felt as though I was overlooking key concepts. So, I used a secondary source to help me broaden my understanding of the poem.
Explanation: I read Asim’s blog post and on the same essay I had read and found his interpretation to be very interesting. This is the best representation for interaction, for I used one of Asim’s ideas in my blog post and explained why I was so intrigued with his argument.
Explanation: There was a good Discussion between Asim and I on this blog post and I felt complied to show everybody how helpful it was. He explained to me how he like my commentary but felt as though I could’ve improved it. So, after hearing what he had to say I altered some aspects of my commentary and responded to his comment based on what I agreed and disagreed with.
Explanation: This was an example of a good discussion between Asim and I on his blog post. I started of by telling him I enjoyed reading his commentary but felt as though he could improve it in certain areas. He replied to my comment by explaining me why he chose to write his commentary in the fashion he did. I then acknowledged the fact that his method may have been the best for him and gave him one last piece of advice. This was a great example of an interesting and intellectual discussion on a blog post.
Just a few weeks ago I wrote my World Literature Paper #2 for my English class. For that particular assignment I chose to write a pastiche based on Albert Camus’s The Stranger. In order to best mimic Camus writing whilst creating an interesting plot I spent a great deal of time researching law books, movies, as well as actual cases. While doing the research I came across a very interesting word, schadenfreude. This German word is used as a loanword in English and it represents the pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. Unfortunately, in my World Literature paper I did not have the means to fully explore this word as I had a constant worry of getting off track and exceeding the word limit. So, I decided to dedicate my wild card blog post to understanding and analyzing schadenfreude.
Schadenfreude, the word originates from the German words Schaden and Freude which mean ‘damage’ and ‘joy’. It means to take spiteful malicious delight in the misfortune of others. As a society, we used to dismiss this as simply an ugly side of human nature, but it is so much more than that. In fact, a professor at Stanford initiated an experiment in which he actually captured schadenfreude on a brain scan. This has become a physiological and medical phenomenon; when we see others in pain, it sometimes causes a chemical to be released in the dorsal striatum of the brain which actually causes us to feel pleasure. The fact that there is a study that proves we feel happiness from the downfall of others is frightening. However, oddly enough, it makes sense. As a society whenever we hear of a huge case or breaking news we get this incontrovertible need to know what’s going on; we simply get exited. If you watch the news or read the newspaper, one can tell that humans get this undeniable, delicious joy over someone else’s plight. It actually scares me to know that our society functions in this fashion. There are numerous examples to prove that schadenfreude actually exists among us. One example could be Tiger Woods, when the story was released that he may have cheated on his wife with over 12 different women his life was utterly ruined; yet the public seemed to rejoice in happiness. This gave the people something to talk about, they could make jokes, and socialize based on somebody else’s pain. Don’t even begin to think how great this was for talk show hosts like Dave Letterman, Conan O’Brian, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel; they had found hot news based on which they could make thousands of jokes. Furthermore, this doesn’t just apply to public humiliation. One could even argue that schadenfreude occurred during the O.J Simpson trial. Although he had committed a horrible crime by killing two innocent people, on some level, although people will never admit it, they were happy. People were glued to their TV’s and newspapers following the case in grave detail. We were happy because this was huge and everyone was talking about it, we wanted to know what evidence there was, why he did it, and even how he did it. As much as I hate to say this, and as controversial as this could be, 9/11 could be a potential example of schadenfreude as well. There is no doubt that a lot of people were absolutely devastated over what happened, but for people who aren’t American and have no family in the states, it is very likely that unknowingly pleasure was derived in the dorsal striatum of their brain. Once again, the public was curious and exited. They wanted to know how this happened, what was next, who did it, how was the U.S was going to respond, and countless other questions. As horrifying as it is, it’s true; people were glued to the TV’s and desperately wanted to know what was next. It’s just how humans are. At this point, it’s already quite scary to know that schadenfreude has been proven to exist, but the extent of the research is expanding everyday. As more and more scientist become interested with this phenomenon it is only a matter of time before we acknowledge just how selfish we are. One may actually be fearful of knowing the answers to the questions; I know I am.
Wanda Coleman’s “Wanda why aren’t you dead” represents the story of an African-American women struggling to meet the expectations put forth by herself and society. She is insulting herself based on her flaws; the one’s she believes she has as well as the one’s others must’ve pointed out. Through the use of the speaker, diction, and structure Wanda is able to illustrate the battle that revives in her head as well as the pain associated with it.
The attitude of the speaker is hateful, yet we can learn from the author’s name that the person being insulted and the one initiating those insults is the same. From that we can derive the fact that Wanda is unhappy with herself, whether it’s because she hasn’t been able to meet her goals or somebody else’s. She says in the beginning of the poem, “wanda. That’s a whore’s name, wanda why ain’t you rich.” The whole poem wanda is constantly listing out her flaws as well as questioning here character. Even though we can acknowledge the unhappiness that Wanda feels towards herself, the poem suggests that some of the flaws Wanda mentions may have been pointed out from a third party. The speaker addresses herself in the third person, which could suggest that all these flaws are merely a merged list of the horrible things she has been told by numerous people.
The diction in the poem helps us further analyze the hate that Wanda feels and why it’s there. By reading the poem we can tell by the vernacular that Wanda is an African-American women. This can be confirmed with lines such as: “You’re joking. Girl, you crazy”, “wanda you have no humor in you you too serious”, and “why ain’t you dead yet.” Furthermore, after recognizing the fact that she is from African-American descent it is evident that the diction in the poem suggests that some of the statements made in the poem don’t come from Wanda. She says, “wanda what is it like being black.” It wouldn’t make sense for a black woman to ask herself what it’s like being black, so this statement came from somebody else. Moreover, we can ponder upon the notion that the person saying these horrible things is a black man, for she says, “I hear you don’t like black men.” Although some of the statements may have come from Wanda, it is safe to assume that some of them came from others; particularly black men.
The structure emphasizes on the pain and lack of respect in Wanda’s life. Throughout the poem every word is lowercased, even Wanda’s name; demonstrating the lack of self-respect. Furthermore, the repetition in the poem further explicates the pain that Wanda experiences. She is constantly reminding herself of the miserable life she’s living and never ceases to mention the flaws associated with her personality. She says, “wanda why don’t you lose weight” and “can’t you afford to move of this hell hole.” This clearly demonstrates that she has no respect for herself and feels the need to constantly remind herself of her flaws.
In order to interpret and deconstruct this poem I would begin by highlighting any important words and sentences. Then, I would observe the structure and its shape. For example this poem has 14 lines. Whilst paying attention the lines I would also look at the rhythm, if there is any. I this case the structure helps me analyze another aspect of the poem, setting. In this first stanza we are give one location and in the fourth one we are given another. Consequently, after each location we are presented with an action. Lastly, before starting the actual analysis of the poem, there is one last step to deconstructing it: diction. Words play a vital role in this poem and by analyzing them the reader can acknowledge what the author is trying to convey to the audience. The poem ends with Splash ! which is an example of a mimesis. Moreover, it is evident that every noun is preceded by an adjective, indicating that this poem is extremely descriptive. In the fourth stanza of the poem the author uses two words that contradict each other, he says, “Biggest little pond.” As to why that is, is unclear to me at this point in time. After revising the poem multiple times, it seems as though to give an accurate analysis of the poem I must focus on speaker, form, and diction.
The speaker of the poem studies the actions that take place at the lake. He says:
“After all day scrambling on the peaks,
A naked bug
With a white body and brown hair
Dives in the water”
The speaker is monitoring the activities that happen at the lake in order to understand it better. He begins by giving the reader the setting of the poem and then follows it with the action that takes place. Moreover, Diction plays a vital role in this poem as the last word of the poem has a major influence on the reader’s last thoughts and analysis. It feels as though the word expresses a sense of freedom, with all the worries that leaded up to the day, they all vanish when the naked bug makes contact with the water. Splash!
This was an extremely hard poem, which I believe to have done a horrible job at deconstructing. Hopefully, after careful revision and some more time with the poem I will understand its meaning and purpose.
After having read an analysis based on the “old pond” I realized that a couple of my ideas were quite accurate while others were way off. For starters, I emphasized a great deal on the fact that a description was followed up by an action. Paglia seems to agree with my statement she says, “ ‘Old pond’ move from admiration of the luminous beauty of a mountain snowscape to the quick impulse and impact of dive into a glacial lake.” Just as I thought, Synder gives the description of a beautiful place and then tell the reader what its purpose; what it’s used for. Although, there were a couple of lines that I understood, there were many that left me clueless. For example, I didn’t understand what Synder was referring to when he said, “up through time.” However, thanks to Paglia’s analysis I was able to understand the essence and importance of that line. She explains, “Hence this flight through space is prefigured or inspired by the airborne birdcall.” This not only explains this sentence but it also helped me understand the lines that came after it. Lastly, I was glad to find out that I got the last line of the sentence right. As I had analyzed the last sentence of the poem indicates the fact that the person is letting go of all their problems by jumping into this beautiful lake. Overall, I understood a small portion of the poem; however; due to Paglia’s analysis I was able to understand the poem considerably more.
The Harlem Dancer is a sonnet written by Claude McKay that focuses on an amazing dancer performing in front of a large group of young people. Through the use of diction, imagery, and the speaker of the poem, McKay is able to illustrate to the reader the beauty associated with the girl’s dancing.
McKay utilizes diction to portray of amazing the girl really is while dancing. He uses words like Perfect, Gracefully, Calm, Lovelier, and Passionate to show the audience how talented she is at what she does. These words help the audience understand why the crowd adores her so much, she’s flawless when she starts dancing. Furthermore, McKay also uses imagery to illustrate the mood and atmosphere in the room when the girl commences her dancing. Lines such as, “Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in her praise,”, “Devoured her with eager, passionate gaze;”, and “Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes,” arouses a sense of understanding of the ruthless crowd in the room. Their eyes are struck to her beauty and they cannot help but strive for more of her dancing. The word Prostitute; however, makes us feel as though the setting takes place in a room full of young, dirty, and unappreciative people. They objectify her, they don’t care about who she is or what she cares about; they just care about what she has to offer, as long as she’s dancing they are happy. The irony is that although she’s making everyone else happy, she’s miserable. Moreover, we can acknowledge that fact because of the speaker of the poem. Unlike everyone else he isn’t focused on the dance of the young girl, but on the expressions on her face and the manner in which she conducts herself. The poem says:
“But looking at her falsely-smiling face
I knew her self was not it that strange place.”
This shows that the speaker of the poem can observes the girl rather than her dancing, and expresses the fact that she may be perfect at dancing but that doesn’t mean she’s happy. He says falsely-smiling face which shows the reader that she isn’t happy dancing in front of all these people. Furthermore, he says I knew herself was not in that strange place clearly expressing that the girl does not wish to be where she is. You may be amazing at what you do, but that doesn’t mean it will bring you happiness.
Amiri Baraka talks about the notion of language and how words have unique meanings to all of us. The idea that a population can speak the same language yet have so many different interpretations and meanings of the words spoken is fascinating. Baraka says, “Money does not mean the same thing to me it must mean to a rich man.” It’s incredible how accurate that statement really is, the word money probably has a similar definition in each dictionary, yet based on the fashion in which one uses the word we associate different meanings to it. For example, if we see a man get out of a Ferrari and say, “I made so much money today,” we would associate the word money in a very different way then if a waitress said to another, “I made so much money today.” The sentences used are identical, but based on the manner in which these people conduct themselves we make the two sentences strangers to each other. One makes us think of a huge sum in the tens of thousands of dollars while the other seems like a waitress got good tips and probably made a couple of hundred bucks. Baraka uses an example very similar to this one when trying to convey his ideas to the reader. In fact, Asim Lal, a fellow class member touched upon a very interesting idea when analyzing Baraka’s essay. He stated:
However, the mere language is not the important thing; rather, it is the person saying the language that is integral. An example he used which I liked had to do with money. He says that for a poor man, money might mean 70 cents, however for a hotshot like David Rockefeller, money means much more than that. When you say “Where is the money?” to someone like him, you would be talking about a lot of it. I believe that from this, Baraka is trying to show that poetry is different to everyone.
Although my ideas and his were very similar throughout our essays, I found it very interesting that he chose to say, “ Baraka is trying to show that poetry is different to everyone.” I hadn’t though of that, and after having read Asim’s essay I cannot help but to comply with his argument. As I said earlier each word has a different meaning to everyone; just like a poem. An entire class could be reading the same poem, yet when we read their commentaries they will all be unique. This is because we all interpret the words and sentences in the poem differently. It is quite extraordinary how each word has such a drastic change in significance from one person to another even though the language spoken is the same. Furthermore, later on in the essay, Baraka states, “But we still need definitions, even if there already are many.” It’s quite funny really, when I’m in English class and I don’t understand a word I go to the dictionary and look it up (If I don’t forget that is). After having read the definition, I simply memorize the word and move on. The problem with that is, I just let somebody else define this word for me! I should’ve paid more attention to the word and acknowledged its meaning for me. Lastly, Barak talks about the pictures that are associated with each word, and although two words may have the same definition they arise completely different images. For his example he uses the words “Thee” and “Me”. Although both of these words have the same meaning when I hear of them or read them in a text it completely changes the tone and manner in which I analyze what I am studying. Thee makes me think of Shakespeare and an old Englishmen for some reason, yet me makes of an informal conversation between two people. This shows how important word choice is; every word is unique and it’s most certainly not defined by its definition.
This all relates to poetry. Firstly, we talked about how the same sentence can be interpreted in numerous ways. This shows how the same poem can have a completely unique meaning for each person; they interpret it in their own way. Secondly, we talked about definitions, in a poem you must not only think of the write word, but also the way it sounds. Although two words may have the exact same meaning, one may be a far better choice because its syllables fit much better with the poem. Lastly, we talked about the images that one gets from different words; when writing a poem you want the reader to imagine the situation that you have created, and in order to do that successfully you must chose the right word. For every word makes you think of something different. As I said earlier, every word is unique and it’s most certainly not defined by its definition.
Everyone likes to watch movies, so for my carte blanche blog I decided to talk about one of them. I was watching the Oscars yesterday and thought about the movies that I thoroughly enjoyed in 2010-2011. Oddly enough, there weren’t many, which got me thinking about all the movies that I had ever enjoyed. One name came to mind: Sin City. My favorite genres are comedy and action as a result of that the list I came up with was: The Departed, Pulp Fiction,Reservoir dogs, Sin city, and The Hangover. Naturally I had to pick a movie that people were less likely to have watched, for it’s dull to read about a movie that you’ve already. Well, not necessarily but the purpose of this blog is to make you watch the movie I’m going to talk about and if you’ve already seen it then it ruins the purpose. So, with that in mind I figured that most people had seen The Hangover, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Departed, which left me with Sin City. I had talked about Sin City with numerous friends and most them hadn’t gotten around to see it yet. So, I encourage you to read this blog and if you’re a true action fan this should capture you interest.
Sin City was directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank miller with special Guest director Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction,Reservoir dogs, Kill Bill, and many more). This movie was nothing short of spectacular! Of course expectations were already high when the cast of the movie was revealed: Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, Clive Owen, and Bruce Willis. One of the amazing things about this movie is that it doesn’t rely on its actors to make a brilliant film; the scenery, the neo-noir effect, and designs are outstanding. The film is based on Frank Miller’s comics which is why the movie is divided into three different stories; “ The Hard Goodbye, about a man who embarks on a brutal rampage in search of his one-time sweetheart's killer;The Big Fat Kill, which focuses on a street war between a group of prostitutes and a group of mercenaries; and That Yellow Bastard, which follows an aging police officer who protects a young woman from a grotesquely disfigured serial killer.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_City_(film)). The violence in this movie is substantial as well as absolutely remarkable. With the list of big names it came to no surprise that the actors portrayed their characters beautifully; Mickey Rourke plays the role of a deranged man who is looking for his ‘lover’s’ murderer, Bruce Willis plays a cop who is constantly looking for justice, and Benicio Del Toro plays a drunk who likes to show his superiority over others. However, the visual effects are what make this movie one of my favorite films of all time. The movie, just like the comics, is shot in black and white with small hints of color whenever deemed appropriate. (See picture 1). This made Sin City a film unlike anything I had ever seen before.
Although this is an amazing movie, the action is quite graphic as well as dark so many people may not be able to handle it. Having said that, if you are an action fan then watching Sin City will be 2 hours of paradise. The violence isn’t simply there to show guns and stunts, but to develop the characters and the story. Sin City changed my whole perception of a good action movie, and the bar is set high for those who want to be in my list of top three best action movies of all time. Ironically, my three favorite action movies are Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Sin City which are all directed by Quentin Torantino. So, if you didn’t like the other two there is a good chance you won’t like Sin City either. All I can say is that it’s a movie shot in a way that I have never encountered before, especially because of the neo-noir. I’m now eagerly waiting for Sin City 2…
§The unique writing style of Camus interests me. Moreover, it gives me the opportunity to write in a different way than I have been accustomed to.
§Fill in a scene that I believed was missing or would’ve been interesting
·A cross examination of one of the characters
·Or a scene with the protagonist and Marie
·Necessary steps to be able to write a good Pastiche
oRe-read the entire book once more (makes it a total of two times
§Highlight important passages that illustrate Camus’ writing
§Analyze the difference between his writing in the first part as oppose to the second one.
·Decided which one suits me best
oRead secondary sources
§Might help me further understand why the author writes the way he does
·Research
oThis may be the most important part of the process upon which my World Lit paper will be written
§I need to know the author’s life inside out, understand what pushed him to write the book the way he did
§Or even why he chose this topic
·Read autobiographies as well as secondary sources that analyze Camus’s character.
oAlso, if given the time I will read the book in French. Fortunately, the language in which the text is originally written is one I know.
§This will help see the ‘exact’ structure and method Camus wrote the book. Often vital information is lost in translation, and I will merely make sure of the fact that I didn’t miss anything important.
oRecognizing the history of the time period in which this book was written may be of great importance
§Comprehend the history of France during the time at which the book takes place as well as when it was written
·The Specific Structure of the World Lit Paper
oMake a vivid outline in bullet points (very similar to this one) where all the ideas are clearly explained.
§The evidence should be good and so should the writing, the only thing missing should be the transition between the ideas and paragraphs
oCome up with a thesis statement.
§Once that my examples are laid out and I know what my main points will be, I will construct my thesis statement
·It should clearly state what my paper will be about and should relate to all my main ideas
oI’ll keep on polishing the thesis statement until it fulfills the requirements provided above
oPut the bullet point form into ‘essay form’
§Figure out in which orders the ideas should be
§Include the transition between ideas
oRead my essay over and over
§Need to be sure that my essay demonstrates EXACTLY what I want to say
§Make corrections as they are deemed necessary
oWrite the conclusion
§Once I’ve made sure that my essay articulates exactly what I want it to, I’ll write the conclusion
oRead my highlights in the book again
§This is to make sure that the evidence that is used in my paper was the best choice
oRead, read, and read…
§Every sentence should flow well
§Read the paper multiple times out-loud
·To make sure everything makes sense, no words are missing, and the necessary pauses are there
·Give yourself a break
oTake some time off the paper and then go back to it
§Edit as much as possible until you are left with a smile on your face and are proud of your paper!
