Engl121

Invisible Man

2005-04-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Invisible Man deals a lot about the problems with racism and blacks during the beginning of the 20th century. The book deals with the problems with identity that the invisible man deals with throughout the book. He deals with many people who all believe in a different way of how a black man should represent himself in society. I believe that the identity about the black man has changed drastically today with much equality in the world. Still, the world has many groups that are treated with inequality and stereotypes.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, many people have taken a different view of people of either Muslim or Arab backgrounds. I believe that they have been put into a strange and difficult situation. They still want to embrace their culture and religion, but if they do many Americans take a terrible view of them and may even take some negative action against them. I believe they are caught just like the invisible man. The Arabs and Muslims are caught in the idea of either should they embrace their old ways or take on an American way of life and conform to the society.
I believe if any one group would be the new invisible man of the 2004 it would the Arab/Muslims who live in America. They are in a world where many people hate them because of their ethnic or religious background because of the events of a small group of people. The world has changed in many ways from the time of the Invisible Man, but still there are many things including identity that haven't changed.

The House of the Spirits

2005-04-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Allende's The House of the Spirits was an epic novel about a South American family and their journel across generations. The story is retold through two of the main characters Esteban and his granddaughter Alba, who are both continuing the journals of Clara, Esteban's wife. The novel has many themes that seem to resurface over and over again throughout the novel. The main idea behind the novel is ideology. Ideology is the study of collection of ideas and the whole concept behind them.
The main theme of the book is the idea of ideology in the main character Esteban. The novel follows Esteban across many decades and the rapid changes and revolutions across the generations. Esteban was very conservative and materialistic man. He was the owner of a large land with many peasants and earn quite a small fornate from the abuse on the peasants. He treated the peasants very poorly and also any other people in what was considered a lower class than his own. Esteban sees a drastic change in politics of the country. Esteban was political conservative, but a more socialist party begins to move in. Eventually a military coup occurs and the country is in shambles. Esteban loses all his political authority, but still refuses to change even though the rest of his family supports the socialists. Eventually Esteban sees the errors in his stubborn ways. Alba, Esteban's granddaughter finally helps him change his ideology about things.
The whole novel I believe deals with Esteban's ideology throughtout the novel and how is was altered through the events in which he was involved. The author I believed wanted us to understand that people need to change over time and the world is becoming more socialistic in its thinking.

The House of the Spirits

2005-03-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

The House of the Spirits is a book written by a South American woman about a family and their trip across three generations. The book is about a family from South America from around the turn of the century and because of this foreign place and time there are many differences in the way their family lives and maybe our own. The foreign ideologies in the book we see as strange or weird are taken as normal occursions by the Trueba family.
The main foreign ideology that stood out for me was the strange relationship between Clara and Ferula. As I was reading about the way Ferula desired Clara made me read over it twice. I am not really sure if this was a normal thing in their time or country, but today in America it's very odd for a woman to be sexually desired by her sister-in-law. The lesbian tendencies of the two women were noticed by Esteban. He would later have his sister Ferula thrown out of the house when he found the woman in bed together.
I know that gays and lesbians are today becoming more exceptable in American and the world today. Gay marriages being recognized and other rights that they are achieving, but I would consider this behavior in the turn of the century to be quite rare. I am sure there were still gays and lesbians during the time period in South America, but I would think many of them would hide their identities and not act on their feelings.

Question for Duplessis

2005-03-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

If I had one question for Duplessis, I think I would ask her why her poems are so fragmented. The constant pauses in the poems really are quite confusing and I wonder if there is a reason for it.

Antigone

2005-03-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

Antigone is has taken many verisons since its original version written by the ancient greeks. One of the newest versions is the written by Bertolt Brecht. This is a modern version of the story of Antigone. Antigone is a woman who has one sister named Ismene, two brothers one of which is a war hero and the other is a deserter. Antigone and her sister discover the one brother Polyneikes has been hung because he deserter the army. He is suppose to be left out in the open so the vultures can eat his body and be left in disgrace. Antigone is outraged and decides she is going to give her brother a proper burial. The King of Thebes who is named Kreon discovers that the body is missing and discovers that Antigone is the person responsible. Antigone is sentenced to death for her actions, which angers Hamon who is the son of Kreon and the fiance of Antigone. Antigone kills herself and Hamon follows with the discovery of Antigone. The city of Thebes is being overthrown and Kreon is left with no sons and a city that is being overthrown.
I liked the story of Antigone maybe because I have always like Greek mythology like the story of Odeipus, who is Antigone's father. One thing I didn't like about the story is about how their was no real closure of the story. I was kind of left wondering if Kreon was sorry for his actions or was he just upset that everything was falling apart. Most of the stories from this time period always had some kind of underlying meaning. I am guessing that the meaning of Antigone is about putting her blood in from of her all others. I could also see this being about Kreon and how he has gone mad with power even putting his own selfish ways in from of his family. The meaning is kind of unclear, but still is entertaining.

The Legend of Gregorio Cortez

2005-02-20T17:43:00.001-08:00

El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez is not a really a normal story. It has no author nor does it have one specific telling of the story. It is a song written and changed over many years about a man who once lived and had a great story to tell. I believe no one knows the real story except maybe Cortez himself and since he has dead for almost a hundred years it would be hard for him to set us straight on the real story. This is not a story of a normal man I believe, but as it says the legend of the man. The story does not really tell us about, "Who was Gregorio Cortez?" Instead the story revolves around the legend of the man. It's the story of one man's journey from person to almost super-natural character. Cortez was turned into a legend not by his own, but rather the people telling the story. I believe in our culture along with many other cultures we turn ordinary people into something great. People want heroes in our society not just to tell a story but also to admire. We want to hear stories of normal men doing great feats, so we can picture ourselves doing the same or representing the people. I believe that Cortez was not the great person who rode through air, but rather a man who was turned into a representation of what the Mexican people wanted to hear about. The story does not talk but briefly of his character but rather the great feats he accomplished by eluding the Texas Rangers. He was not caught but instead surrender on his own because his people were suffering for him. This story I believe was not a story of a man, but more of a story of the Mexican people standing up for their rights as a society. We as people I believe want heroes and also need heroes to inspire ourselves to become heroes as well. This is the Mexican peoples' story of a great Mexican hero that inspires generations to become heroes themselves. People aren't in love with the man, but instead his legend.

The Legend of Gregorio Cortez

2005-02-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

2005-02-08T19:10:00.000-08:00

"Blood Wedding" by Federico Lorca is a tale of love and tragedy, almost a more modern tale of the story of "Romeo and Juliet." The tale of a young woman ready to marry a man, but later runs off with her former lover, who happens to already been married. The two do not make it far as the bridegroom finds the man and take each other lives over one woman.
There is many ideas I liked about the story by Lorca. One thing I thought was clever that the characters did not have names just genertic nouns like bride and mother. Leonardo the former lover of the bride was the only character with a name, maybe because of his signifiance in the story. I also saw many ideas of foreshadowing in the story. The first act has the mother tell her son that she does not like him carrying knives because men often lose their lives playing with knives. Another part is in the last act with the Moon and the Beggar Woman discussing the mood of the forest with blood and knives. The characters like the Moon, Beggar Woman, and woodcutters were quite interesting. They seem to add more flavor to the story.
There are many things I do not like about the story as well. The story was quite short and I don't think the characters were developed very much. I think you just got the top of the surface of each character. The relationship of the Bride and Leonardo was never explained or the relationship of the Bride and her Father. Also the relationship between the Mother and the Bridegroom was kind of strange as well. It reminds me of the over-protective mother who does not allow her son to do much at all.
Overall the story was good, but it had a few flaws. I enjoyed it because I really enjoy tragedies. I would have liked to see more of a storyline in this story and more development.

The Awakening

2005-01-30T18:26:00.001-08:00

The Awakening by Kate Chopin is a story of a female and her idea of martial infidelity. Its kind of shocking since the book was written in the late 19th century. Edna Pontellier is a woman who is married with 2 children and seems to have a happy marriage. One summer while vacationing in the gulf she has what is an awakening. She falls for a man named Robert and goes on a quest to find herself and what she really wants in life. She decides to move out of her house and into her own home and tries herself as an artist. Edna later finds that Robert decides he cannot be with her because she is married. She knows that she can't go back with her husband and decides to take her own life.
I see this story much like "The Yellow Wallpaper" in that the idea of female independence. The main character Edna is woman struggling to break from the norm of society and do what she really wants. The problem is that she does not know what she really wants and has much internal struggle. The Yellow Wallpaper has a woman wanting to write and not be the normal housewife. Edna is just like the other woman because she does not want to sell herself short of what could be a happier life. I believe Edna is having almost mid-life crisis that a lot of people have in their lifetime.
The title fits the story is quite fitting. Edna has an awakening almost in one day it seems and decides to change her whole life. I see the act of her learning to swim as almost an awakening for her. After she swims in the water I think she sees herself as a new woman of sorts. Swimming was the first step of her breaking out of what I think is a trapped life in her family. I also believe that taking her life in the same water that she first learned to swim was quite appropriate. I think the water symbolized as almost a cleansing of her soul. It made her open her eyes and decide to try to start over. When she finds that she cannot find true happiness because she can't be with Robert, she takes her life in the same water that awoken her before. Drowning herself in the water I see as a way of releasing herself from the pain of unhappiness because she comes to turns with herself. She finds that she cannot ever find true happiness because society would turn its back to her for her choices

The Awakening

2005-01-30T18:26:00.000-08:00

The Yellow Wallpaper

2005-01-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

"The Yellow Wallpaper", was a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the late 19th century. The story of a woman who believes to be ill and her husband believes that she rest to become better. Her husband is a physician and has her stay in a house that they are renting until their home is fixed. She says in a room which is covered by a strange yellow wallpaper that she describes in great detail. She is not able to leave the house or really even the room. Her child is being care of by a nanny. She does not want to be kept in the room, but her husband keeps insisting that she stayed there until she gets better. She sees the room as a prison where she is kept from doing anything. The woman loves to write and has to keep it hidden from her husband.
The story is very confusing at points because the woman switchs back and forth from talking about her life in the house and describing the wallpaper. She looks at the wallpaper and tries to figure out the pattern in the wallpaper. At the end of the story the woman is about to leave the house and return to her home. She one night begins to rip the wallpaper off the wall as her husbands walks and faints. She continues to strip the wallpaper as her husband lays on the floor.
The story is about the idea of woman not being able to do what she wants to do. She wants to be a independent woman and write. Society on the other hand sees women as being dependent on their husbands and not working at all. It's a feminist story about being a strong woman and her struggle to break from the norm in society. I found the meaning of the story to be a great idea, but the story is confusing at times with her descriptions of the wallpaper. The story seems puzzling at times, but has a great idea behind it.

Frederick Douglass

2005-01-23T17:47:00.000-08:00

The "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave", is the true autobiography of the life of a former slave named, Frederick Douglass. The story begins with his younger years of being born into slavery during the early 19th century in Maryland. He describes the treatment of slaves by their owners and with his first hand accounts. He was born only a half black slave with the mention of his father of possibly being his master. At birth he was taken from his mother and placed in the care of an elderly slave woman, who took care of him. He laters grows older and begins his work as a slave, describing the work and treatment he received. He laters moves to another master's land and the new mistress begins to teach him how to read. The mistress discontinues his teaching after being scolded by the master for teaching him. He keeps with his learning and eventually learns to read and write. The education he receives plants the idea of his questioning of why he is a slave? In Chapter VII there is a quote from Douglass, that I believe sums up the story. Douglass says, "The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange alnd reduced us to slavery."
I believe this is the point of the story which is the most important. The master earlier told the mistress to discontinue his teaching because the education would make him not fit to be a slave. The quote from Douglass is when he realizes that his master was right because the education made him question slavery and want a better life. Douglass later escapes from slavery and becomes a free man living in the North. He later becomes a leader in the movement against slavery and publishes his narrative.
I found the narrative a very inspiring story because I believe it could give hope to anyone who feels they have no way out. He had all the odds against him and was able to rise above them and become a great individual. I am sure his narrative helped changed the minds of many people about slavery. The story is still enduring one because it shows that anyone who wants to can rise above their environment and acheive greatness.