iupengl121-sicarichad

Things Fall Apart.

2005-04-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Like The Awakening, House of the Spirits, and Invisible man, "Things Fall Apart has an awkward twist. This story introduces the unique characteristics of African culture. It begins with the periodical life of the African people centered around the honorable character Okonkwo. He is a man who, "Has no patience for unsuccessful men," which in the end causes his life to fall apart. Through the description of Okonkwo's struggles in life, Achebe defines the many features of African rituals. Achebe also introduces the affects of clashing cultures. The European's domination over Okonkwo's culture leaves him "Deeply grieved...He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart. Okonkwo's admirable life and titles simply falls apart. Things Fall Apart is an good display of the negative results clashing civilizations have on the unrivaled and colorful rituals of cultures. Halfway through this book, I had to think of what happened if a African missionary came over to Indiana, PA and started converting our current culture into what they considered the norm. This wasn't my favorite book, but it had a very good question to ask its readers: The question of Change.

Invisible Man

2005-04-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' is a book that portrays the life of a black man living in Harlem in the 1930's, shows the struggles he goes through, and then relates them to society to show the greater meaning of the impact that time had on America's history. The book is very well-written and Ellison's style is somewhat different, but very gripping and easy to read. It is very interesting how Ellison represents many actual people and places through the characters and places in the book, and also how he hides themes of racism and the struggle for equality throughout within the text. An example of this is the paint factory, where it takes a black man to make the most perfectly white, flawless paint. Also, the name of the paint company is "Liberty Paints"; the narrarator was fighting for his liberty throughout the entire story. It shows the struggle for equality that black society was caught in during the 1930's from the eyes of someone involved, and then Ellison relates the struggle to everyone. There are though, a few concepts that I could tell had relevance, but I could not figure what exactly it was. One instance is the 1,369 light bulbs. Ellison would not just pick a random number, this digit means something...but what? There are a few examples like this throughout the novel, but "Invisible Man" had a main concept that was very easy to grasp. Our narrarator was invisible because people just looked at him from the outside, not the inside. Therefore just rendering him "invisible". Very clever idea...I enjoyed this novel.

The House of the Spirits

2005-04-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits was a novel in which I interpreted many different forms of circular completion. Every life in the story was completed with death, every generation was completed with a new birth, The entire story itself becomes a loop with its last sentence, which is the same as the first, thus completing another circle. Allende's description of each character is unique; the readers learn each charatcher's strengths, weaknesses, internal and external conflicts, and their true nature as an individual. Allende is not afraid to make someone such as Esteban Trueba a very diry, unethical man. He disrespects men, and rapes women with impunity. The House of the Spirits I thought was a very well written, easy to comprehend novel. It kept my interest as a reader, and I found pieces of myself within some characters.

Ideology Inside of Allende's House of the Spirits

2005-03-29T22:47:00.000-08:00

“…I realized that she had simply fulfilled her mission in this life and that she had escaped to another dimension where her spirit, finally free of its material burden, would be more at home.”

“…in that time my wife had changed, as we all do with the passage of time.”

These two passages on pages 293-294 give a sense of the ideological idea of the cyclical pattern of nature. While he is laying next to her, Esteban notices how Clara has changed physically, but more importantly, that she is on her way to complete her circle in life. During her time on Earth, Clara was very much into the unknown world, and the afterlife. With her reading of tarot cards, and looking at the alignment of the stars, Clara was able to see her time on earth was limited. She accepted this, for earth was only one dimension in her circle, and forewarned her family of her forthcoming death. This made me question deeply upon my own beliefs. What is my next step in my own circle? How long will it be till I find out? These are questions that I am unable to answer, but I must ask myself if I really wanted to know my own destiny.

Question for Rachel Blau Duplessis

2005-03-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

If I had a question to ask Rachel Blau Duplessis, it would be the following: "What inspires your poetry, and what does each individual poem mean to you?

Antigone

2005-03-04T03:57:00.000-08:00

Antigone was a play written by Sophocles some time ago. It is the story of a young woman (Antigone) who gives her life for something she believes in. Her brother (polyneikes) was killed because of his cowardness; he ran away from a battle, instead of fighting the enemy and dying valiently. As his sister, Antigone has the obligation to giver her brother a proper buriel, but Kreon (the king) refuses to let her. Antigone's life is threatened if she continues with her plans of a proper buriel, and Ismene, Antigone's sister is brought into the play. Ismene to me seems as though she doesn't want any trouble, she just tries to stay neutral in the story. At the end, Antigone, her brother, and Hamon; Kreon's son set to marry Antigone were all dead, with nothing accomplished. This story was defiantely a tradgedy.
At the middle of the story, the Brecht version breaks into a part of World War II that was clearly written to resemble the first part of our story, Antigone. I though that the author would continue with this idea and venture back down that road after more of Antigone was read, but it ended up just being that one short clip of the story. Being a history major, with a interest in World War II, this little part of the story was a nice change from our conventional, mostly fictional reading. This play was alright, I just wish the author continued with the World War II piece

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

2005-02-20T18:35:00.000-08:00

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez was a story told while sitting around the campfire, or a bedtime tale told to help settle young children to sleep. This process was then repeated, children telling their children, and friends telling their friends. Through this process; exaggeration and misinterpretation are revealed and can throw the story off balance. What was once in truth a man of normal stature, becomes a large and muscular, man of epic proportions. What was once 3 sheriffs chasing our hero has become over 300, and all fearing his lonely pistol. The author has tried to eliminate all bias and find what was coincidental in every version of the story that he was told. He then formed (in his own opinion) the most exact account of Cortez and published what he had interpreted.
The actual story of Gregorio Cortez tells of a man who is respectable, brave, and skilled in all aspects of life. When his brother is wrongfully shot by the sheriff, Cortez retaliates and kills the sheriff. Instantly, Cortez is a man on the run, and successfully out maneuvers the men chasing him until he hears of his family being persecuted. He willingly gives up and is thrown into jail. He is later released, but dies that same year from a slow, painful poison he was given while incarcerated. The story kept my attention throughout, and the ending seemed unfair, but that is what makes him a hero.

Blood Wedding

2005-02-06T16:35:00.000-08:00

The tragedy of Blood Wedding was a very dramatic play. In the begining, I was able to follow it closely, but toward the end, it was hard to percieve what happened. As the story progressed, and the wife ran away, different characters were introduced, and the plot was bombareded with odd confusing twists and turns. At the begining of Act 3, Woodcutters become present, which to me had no significance to the story. Also, the beggar woman and the amount of children that appeared later, I could not understand why they were there.
As the story came to a close, I noticed that Leonardo was the only character with a real name. The bride, mother, father, etc., all these people were subject to general labeling. This made me re-align my perception and made Leondardo the main character of the play instead of the bridegroom or his wife-to-be. Leonardo's character was the "bad-ass" of the story. He had the sweet ride (the horse) and he got the girl (the bride). I can see him as the modern day "Fonzi" from happy days. Leonardo probably had some pretty sweet hair and wore a leather jacket as well.

The Awakening

2005-01-31T06:39:00.000-08:00

The awakening was not only a larger story than any other we have read before, but had a much deeper moral and idea behind it. The main character, Edna, was an out of place native of Kentucky. During the time of the story, she was living in the open and very liberal lifestyle of the Creole in New Orleans. This experience was very different than what she grew up in. She tried very hard to conform to the New Orlean society, but it was just impossible to do forever. One day, she finally learned to swim at the age of 28, and is given a large burst of self confidence. She rebels in everyway possible and decides to become independent and not care about what people say about her and her newly found lifestyle. She realizes she is not in love with her husband, and starts to fulfill her lustful fantasies with other men. The one man that she is truly in love with is Robert, and he is also very much in love with her. Their passion for one another is strong, but they are never able to be together. Edna is so confused with all that is going on in her life that she decides to take a swim out to the ocean, and never come back.
In my opinion, The Awakening gives its readers courage to challenge the norm, and break outside of what is accepted. In Edna’s case though, we see what happens if we take it too far. The metaphor of the sea and Edna learning to swim I thought was very clever. It is ironic also that where she learned her newly found bravery, is also where she would lose her life. It gives us a sense that the sea is what gave her a rebirth, and also what took it.

Yellow Wallpaper

2005-01-22T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Yellow Wallpaper I found quite strange. The woman that was telling the story seemed to have deep seeded problems that she only says is "nervousness". Personally, I felt as though she was a psychotic hypochondriac, with a mentally abusive husband.Throughout the story, this woman claims to see someone inside her yellow wallpaper in her room. Could this be a reflection of her own personality? Or, even another person inside of her (Schizophrenia)? Nevertheless, the woman soon becomes obsessed with the wallpaper and starts to scare everyone in her family.When she starts seeing the "Wall Paper Woman" outside walking around, The story takes an odd twist and ends abruptly.

Fredrick Douglass

2005-01-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed Fredrick Douglass' narrative very much. It gives us an insight to how the slaves were treated on an everyday basis. Their owners had no regard or respect for them, and would gladly dish out a whipping for no particular reason. This authority that the masters had over the slaves was a constant power-trip, that could turn a kind person into an ugly, cold hearted one.One thing that the readers get out of this story is the determination of Mr. Douglass to learn to read and write. He will use these skills as weapons for his fight for freedom. I think that story is important to us as English students for its context, but more importantly to us as humans, so we now and understand the horror that was once slavery.