Howl

In section 1 of this  poem Allen Ginsberg talks about  "the best minds of my generation" "which were destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix" This to me doesn't sound like what i would consider to be the best minds of a generation, this sounds like a crack head looking for a fix. In the 2nd Section he talks about Moloch, i look this up this was an "idolatrous god to whom children were sacrificed by placing them in fire" "Moloch is associated with war, government, capitalism, and mainstream culture"

I'm going to have to continue to write this blog after class on Monday, so ill actually have some ideas to continue to write about.

Harrison Bergeron

This story takes place in the future and everyone is equal. No one was smarter than anybody else, no body was better looking than anybody else, and no was stronger or quicker than anybody else. You have George who was  average intelligence he had a mental handicap radio so he wasn't smarter than anyone else. His wife hazel was just your normal every day person. Long story short the government comes a takes away their son Harrison for no apparent reason. They said it was tragic but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Harrison escapes from jail and gets on the TV and says that he is taking over. and Takes all of the Handicapping things they put on him off. Which is illegal, the government comes in and kills him. The TV dies so the mother couldn't see it and George was in the kitchen getting a beer, his mental handicap radio kicks in and he forgets what he saw and Hazel cant think for very long so she is upset but doesn't know why.

We are always fighting for equality and this shows us a darker side to this equality. Were they didn't make everyone smarter, they make everyone dumber. And we have to think is this the equality that we want when we talk about equality.

The Short Happy life of Francis Macomber

First off the marriage is a wreck from the get go. So they decide to go on a hunt in Africa to see if they can rekindle there lost romance. Its just Macomber his Wife Margot and their guide Wilson. during the hunt with Wilson macomber runs away from a loin they had shot when it jumped at the two when they tired to finish it off. Is wife hates this and runs away crying from the dinner table. later on in the story Margot sleeps with Wilson because Wilson is more of a man than her husband and she is turned on by that. The story ends when they are hunting buffalo and this time when they go in for the kill macomber doesn't run away but stands his ground and his wife shoots from the car and kills him.

What i think about this story is Margot didn't want a husband that wasn't going to be a man that's why she slept with Wilson. When macomber finally got a hold of this idea and he started to change the way he acts to stand up for himself, she didn't like that. Margot had gotten used to the idea of a weak husband and didn't want to give up that power. So i believe she killed her own husband.

A good Man is hard to find.

WOW this story was really dark, i was about a family taking a trip to Florida and the grandma says they shouldn't go because of a misfit that got away for jail. Well they run into this misfit and his gang, they kill everyone that was in the car, they leave the grandma for last. He shoots her in the chest 3 times. I really don't understand what the author was trying to say with this one. with all of the killing it kinda of got in the way of my understanding.

langston Hughes Harlem

Again i can see what langston had went through as a young child growing up in the south. He talks about dreams deferred, that could tell us that "hey when i was growing up i had to place my dreams on hold. to help the parents with bills get a job, not like all of the white kids i see they get to continue to go to school" He wants to know since he put his dreams on hold want will happen to them? Then in the 3 section he says this "Maybe it just sags like a heavy load." I think he was trying to show us that when people put their dreams on hold, it weights over them and they will always say... "what if"

what do you think?

Langston Hughes Theme for English B

Langston Hughes is living in the north and going to school in Harlem. He grew up in western North Carolina, which at that time was a very hard time for a black person to grow up in. Segregation was fully in forced during that time, so even living in New York he still feels that present.  In the second part he talks about all of the things that make him no different from his instructor.

"But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach. "

But later on in the poem he talks about how his instructor is white and all of the difference that are between them. But as much as they don't like each other they are part each others lives. The last few lines he talks about what they learn from each other, and even though the instructor is older and white and somewhat more free he is still learning from Hughes. Also i think he feels alone in this "I am the only colored student in my class." what do you think??

Countee Cullen

I liked "Yet Do I Marvel" i get the feeling like Cullen doing what some people do when they say this line "I'm not trying to be rude" But they know what they have to say is rude and about to hurt that person's feelings. Cullen i believe is questioning God for some of the things he does. But Cullen understand that he can't understand God's motives when he says this "To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune" This line is showing what i just said, he is asking why but he understands that he can't ever know.

In Heritage i get the feeling that he thinks he is alone this world. The poem talks about the jungle being a track, maybe he feels like he his going around and round on the same thing nothing ever changing. Cullen also talks about not being able to rest and that he finds on peace. Could this be a love poem? Maybe of a love lost, or maybe he never had the courage to tell that special someone. My thought is found correct with this line "Come and dance the Lover’s Dance!” "

 

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

J. Alfred Prufrock is a middle age man going through a middle-age crisis. He is talking to a unknown person all through out the poem. I think he is talking to himself because he is doubting him self and i know sometime when i doubt myself i internalize self doubt. example "To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”" another example of his mid-life crisis would be this quote "For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,         50 I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.   So how should I presume? " He already knows whats going to happen, and he doesn't see his life being with much. Another example of self doubt would be this line "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?"

I also thing that he wants to die, if you read this line "The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes" the first thing that comes to my mind would be mustered gas they used during WWI. Maybe he is hoping that the gas will reach him and it will end his suffering. At the end he starts to hate on himself "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use,         115 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool." This man is alone in this world and he doesn't like it.

the quote at the beginning was translated to this

"If I believed my answer was

to a person who'd ever get back to the world,
this flame would keep still without moving any further.
But since from those undergrounds
no one has ever come back alive, if I hear what's true,
I answer you without fear of infamy."






*sparknotes were used again, and an online translator was to translate the quote at the beginning.  

Wasteland

Okay first off i had to use an outside source to help me understand this poem, i just didn't want to write well i didn't understand and leave it at that. The first part of this poem is 4 different short stories the first is about a wealthy woman thinking about her childhood. The second story talks about shadows and a hyacinth girl i'm not sure what that was suppose to mean. Third shows us a tarot card reading, the final i thought was the best of the three, the speaker is walking through London and there are ghost all around him he calls out stetson and he asked him if the corpse he planted will sprout.

Game of Chess: what i found was this section was to show stages in seduction, one story showing you the upper class version and the other the lower class. She is sitting on her throne waiting for her lover to arrive, and while she is waiting her thought overcome her. In the lower class version the bar is closing for the night and the woman recounts a conversation with a friend named Lil. Her husband had giving her money for false teeth(line 145) but she didnt buy them so she thinks that he will seek out company of other woman. She blames her bad looks on pills she took (line159)

The First Sermon:
I had to use my outside source for this because i didn't understand it. It was taken from a sermon given by Buddha which he tells people to give up earthly passion( this can be seen on line 250) and seek freedom for earthly things.

Death by Water:
The name says it all Phlebas the Phoenician died by drowning, and he has forgot about his worries ( line 313) I like the part at the end were he says "O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,  320 Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you" i think he is trying to get us to think about our own death.

What the Thunder Said:
again had to rely heavily on the outside source for this section. he talks about people suffering and how cities are being built and destroyed again. Then the holy grail sits atop a chapel and no heroic figure appeared to claim it. Scene shifts to Ganges were they talk about thunder. The poem ends with a series of fragments from Dante, and for Elizabethan drama.


Without Sparknotes this would have been a very hard read. But with sparknotes it seemed to clear up alot of things that i might have had questions on. I cant wait for our class talk about this tomorrow

Feed

I've read up to chapter utopia. This story is about Titus a teenager and his friends go to the moon for spring break. Everyone now has what they call a feed which is a computer chip they put into their head, he says on page 47 that it makes you super smart without even trying. This has put a stop to writing with a pen and paper in the dead language chapter page 65 Titus was shocked that Violet used a pen and paper to write down ideas, he had become so dependent on his Feed. At first Titus has withdraws not having his feed, but after a few pages be begins see what life is like without his feed, and i get the feeling that he doesn't mind it at all. I think this will play a major role later on in the book, once they turn their feeds back on they were really happy information flowed into them. Titus said it felt like spring rains and they were dancing in it.

The War Prayer

This was a really good read. It was about a town celebrating a war and the people being so proud of the young men that were going to fight in it. The next day comes shipping out, but before this everyone is in church the preacher asks God for his help with this upcoming battle. Then a man walks up next to the preacher and starts talking to the church he said that he had a message from God himself! He said that God will grant their prayers if they listen to the message he has from God.  Basically from the pray they uttered just a minute ago, was not one prayer but two, the one a blessing the other a curse. The blessing would be for the troops to do well in the war, kill many people and then come home as heros. But the curse would be the families of those other dead troops from the other army. Those women and children would be grief stricken and wouldn't have a roof over their heads because their husband/ father wasn't there.

We talked in class about how Mark Twain became very cynical in his is old age, and this story is a good example of it. I think the old man in this story could be Mark Twain, he was trying to show people that war is wrong no matter who wins. At the days in there still will be a family that is fatherless and a wife that is made a widow to early in life.