Monday, April 27, 2009
Paper Topic
I have read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. The topic of my paper will pertain to a question that crossed my mind countless times as I read the novel. Is McMurphy a catalyst to the inner strength and manliness that the likes of Chief and the others have or is he the sole source of their manliness, courage and eventual recovery. Furthermore, I will also examine the question of weather the patients were really patients in need of help or outcasts of society that needed a place they wouldn’t be judged. I believe that these two inquires will overlap to some degree.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Keats' Coping with Death (take 3)
The life of John Keats was anything but rosy. It would be difficult to wish such tragedy and perpetual death on even one’s worst enemy. However, it is this perennial sorrow that gave Keats his inspiration to be among the elite 19th century romantic poets. His sonnet “When I have fears that I may cease to be” deals with questions of mortality and one’s legacy that every person struggles with at some point. Unfortunately, Keats gradually became more and more consumed by these feelings, beginning in his very early years and exponentially amplified by every death he encountered (each family member he outlived.).
To fully understand the loneliness, fear, anxiousness, and mortality that Keats expresses in his sonnet, one must look at the many devastating moments Keats experienced in his brief life. Beginning at age 9, Keats lost his father, when his father fell head first off of a horse. The following year his grandfather, who had filled in as the father figure for Keats, also died suddenly. When Keats was 15, his mother lost her battle with tuberculosis, a disease that would haunt John and his siblings. A few years later John lost his grandmother. By this time John had bounced around between schools and apprenticeships before finally abandoning his final attempt at medicine and pursuing his love of language. Just as his life began to turn and he began to gain fame as a poet, the death of his grandmother left John burdened with the responsibility of his ailing brother, Tom Keats. This was the same time that John wrote his first draft of “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. Watching his brother’s diminishing health forced John to experience the death of someone very much like himself. I believe that this forced John to cope with the ideas of his own death and ponder the temporary and fragile nature of life. Face to face with a death in an individual that was more like John than anyone in the world culminated in a laundry list of things that John most enjoyed in his life coupled with a great regret of the things in life he had not and might not ever experience.
John Keats channeled his consuming thoughts into this sonnet. The sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet. The most apparent theme of Keats’ sonnet is that of time and the uncertainty of a tomorrow. This theme strings together the three quatrains, each beginning with “when”, a word that magnifies the fleeting nature of time. This notion is expressed most directly in the first quatrain by the first line “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. The quatrain continues on to touch upon some of Keats’ most concrete and immediate desires such as his wishes to publish the countless literary works currently trapped in his mind. He also laments his relative lack of knowledge in comparison to the knowledge contained in the “high-piled books” that he has yet to read. This is another slight against himself and his vulnerability to death at such a young age. Keats, obviously a man driven by his work, views his lack of knowledge as a lack of possible material for his poems. This is even further hinted when he flashes a bit of the knowledge he already possesses with his use of the word “charact’ry” coined by Shakespeare, and meaning hand written or printed letters. Keats’ quest to become skilled at the craft of poetry is obvious in this first quatrain. He uses a series of references to harvest, the harvest from within his brain, and emphasizes all of the harvest related words with alliteration. “[G[lean’d”, “garners” and “grain”, all begin with the same consonant.
Keats’ second quatrain shifts from the traditional, education driven forms of inspiration for his work, to the romantic material that nature’s settings provide. His description of heavenly views in this quatrain hint at the notion that even with all the time in the world, it is possible that nature is a boundless source of inspiration and creation.
Keats is, of course, aware that no poem explaining the pleasures of life would be complete without a shout out to love. Thus, he wrote the third quatrain. He alludes to the perfect woman as the fairy like “fair creature of an hour”. This woman embodies all the love that that he has yet to experience. He mourns that his life has not yet been touched by the “fairy power” of love.
Finally, Keats seems to take some solace in the concluding couplet in which he professes that he will outdo death through “love and fame”. The final thought of his sonnet “I stand and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink” is effectively the credo that Keats has adopted to live his life by. He needs to achieve Love and Fame to avoid “nothingness”. This line justifies all preceding lines of the poems as it explains his great emphasis on the quality of his works and the anger that he feels that life might cheat him by taking away possible materials and tools that he needs to become immortal in the shelves of man.
(865)
To fully understand the loneliness, fear, anxiousness, and mortality that Keats expresses in his sonnet, one must look at the many devastating moments Keats experienced in his brief life. Beginning at age 9, Keats lost his father, when his father fell head first off of a horse. The following year his grandfather, who had filled in as the father figure for Keats, also died suddenly. When Keats was 15, his mother lost her battle with tuberculosis, a disease that would haunt John and his siblings. A few years later John lost his grandmother. By this time John had bounced around between schools and apprenticeships before finally abandoning his final attempt at medicine and pursuing his love of language. Just as his life began to turn and he began to gain fame as a poet, the death of his grandmother left John burdened with the responsibility of his ailing brother, Tom Keats. This was the same time that John wrote his first draft of “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. Watching his brother’s diminishing health forced John to experience the death of someone very much like himself. I believe that this forced John to cope with the ideas of his own death and ponder the temporary and fragile nature of life. Face to face with a death in an individual that was more like John than anyone in the world culminated in a laundry list of things that John most enjoyed in his life coupled with a great regret of the things in life he had not and might not ever experience.
John Keats channeled his consuming thoughts into this sonnet. The sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet. The most apparent theme of Keats’ sonnet is that of time and the uncertainty of a tomorrow. This theme strings together the three quatrains, each beginning with “when”, a word that magnifies the fleeting nature of time. This notion is expressed most directly in the first quatrain by the first line “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. The quatrain continues on to touch upon some of Keats’ most concrete and immediate desires such as his wishes to publish the countless literary works currently trapped in his mind. He also laments his relative lack of knowledge in comparison to the knowledge contained in the “high-piled books” that he has yet to read. This is another slight against himself and his vulnerability to death at such a young age. Keats, obviously a man driven by his work, views his lack of knowledge as a lack of possible material for his poems. This is even further hinted when he flashes a bit of the knowledge he already possesses with his use of the word “charact’ry” coined by Shakespeare, and meaning hand written or printed letters. Keats’ quest to become skilled at the craft of poetry is obvious in this first quatrain. He uses a series of references to harvest, the harvest from within his brain, and emphasizes all of the harvest related words with alliteration. “[G[lean’d”, “garners” and “grain”, all begin with the same consonant.
Keats’ second quatrain shifts from the traditional, education driven forms of inspiration for his work, to the romantic material that nature’s settings provide. His description of heavenly views in this quatrain hint at the notion that even with all the time in the world, it is possible that nature is a boundless source of inspiration and creation.
Keats is, of course, aware that no poem explaining the pleasures of life would be complete without a shout out to love. Thus, he wrote the third quatrain. He alludes to the perfect woman as the fairy like “fair creature of an hour”. This woman embodies all the love that that he has yet to experience. He mourns that his life has not yet been touched by the “fairy power” of love.
Finally, Keats seems to take some solace in the concluding couplet in which he professes that he will outdo death through “love and fame”. The final thought of his sonnet “I stand and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink” is effectively the credo that Keats has adopted to live his life by. He needs to achieve Love and Fame to avoid “nothingness”. This line justifies all preceding lines of the poems as it explains his great emphasis on the quality of his works and the anger that he feels that life might cheat him by taking away possible materials and tools that he needs to become immortal in the shelves of man.
(865)
Keats' Coping with Death
The life of John Keats was anything but rosy. It would be difficult to wish such tragedy and perpetual death on even one’s worst enemy. However, it is this perennial sorrow that gave Keats his inspiration to be among the elite 19th century romantic poets. His sonnet “When I have fears that I may cease to be” deals with questions of mortality and one’s legacy that every person struggles with at some point. Unfortunately, Keats gradually became more and more consumed by these feelings, beginning in his very early years and exponentially amplified by every death he encountered (each family member he outlived.).
To fully understand the loneliness, fear, anxiousness, and mortality that Keats expresses in his sonnet, one must look at the many devastating moments Keats experienced in his brief life. Beginning at age 9, Keats lost his father, when his father fell head first off of a horse. The following year his grandfather, who had filled in as the father figure for Keats, also died suddenly. When Keats was 15, his mother lost her battle with tuberculosis, a disease that would haunt John and his siblings. A few years later John lost his grandmother. By this time John had bounced around between schools and apprenticeships before finally abandoning his final attempt at medicine and pursuing his love of language. Just as his life began to turn and he began to gain fame as a poet, the death of his grandmother left John burdened with the responsibility of his ailing brother, Tom Keats. This was the same time that John wrote his first draft of “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. Watching his brother’s diminishing health forced John to experience the death of someone very much like himself. I believe that this forced John to cope with the ideas of his own death and ponder the temporary and fragile nature of life. Face to face with a death in an individual that was more like John than anyone in the world culminated in a laundry list of things that John most enjoyed in his life coupled with a great regret of the things in life he had not and might not ever experience.
John Keats channeled his consuming thoughts into this sonnet. The sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet. The most apparent theme of Keats’ sonnet is that of time and the uncertainty of a tomorrow. This theme strings together the three quatrains, each beginning with “when”, a word that magnifies the fleeting nature of time. This notion is expressed most directly in the first quatrain by the first line “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. The quatrain continues on to touch upon some of Keats’ most concrete and immediate desires such as his wishes to publish the countless literary works currently trapped in his mind. He also laments his relative lack of knowledge in comparison to the knowledge contained in the “high-piled books” that he has yet to read. This is another slight against himself and his vulnerability to death at such a young age. Keats, obviously a man driven by his work, views his lack of knowledge as a lack of possible material for his poems. This is even further hinted when he flashes a bit of the knowledge he already posses with his use of the word “charact’ry” coined by Shakespeare, and meaning hand written or printed letters.
Keats’ second quatrain shifts from the traditional, education driven forms of inspiration for his work, to the romantic material that nature’s settings provide. His description of heavenly views in this quatrain hint at the notion that even with all the time in the world, it is possible that nature is a boundless source of inspiration and creation.
Keats is, of course, aware that no poem explaining the pleasures of life would be complete without a shout out to love. Thus, he wrote the third quatrain. He alludes to the perfect woman as the fairy like “fair creature of an hour”. This woman embodies all the love that that he has yet to experience. He mourns that his life has not yet been touched by the “fairy power” of love.
Finally, Keats seems to take some solace in the concluding couplet in which he professes that he will outdo death through “love and fame”. The final thought of his sonnet “I stand and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink” is effectively the credo that Keats has adopted to live his life by. He needs to achieve Love and Fame to avoid “nothingness”. This line justifies all preceding lines of the poems as it explains his great emphasis on the quality of his works and the anger that he feels that life might cheat him by taking away possible materials and tools that he needs to become immortal in the shelves of man.
(815)
To fully understand the loneliness, fear, anxiousness, and mortality that Keats expresses in his sonnet, one must look at the many devastating moments Keats experienced in his brief life. Beginning at age 9, Keats lost his father, when his father fell head first off of a horse. The following year his grandfather, who had filled in as the father figure for Keats, also died suddenly. When Keats was 15, his mother lost her battle with tuberculosis, a disease that would haunt John and his siblings. A few years later John lost his grandmother. By this time John had bounced around between schools and apprenticeships before finally abandoning his final attempt at medicine and pursuing his love of language. Just as his life began to turn and he began to gain fame as a poet, the death of his grandmother left John burdened with the responsibility of his ailing brother, Tom Keats. This was the same time that John wrote his first draft of “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. Watching his brother’s diminishing health forced John to experience the death of someone very much like himself. I believe that this forced John to cope with the ideas of his own death and ponder the temporary and fragile nature of life. Face to face with a death in an individual that was more like John than anyone in the world culminated in a laundry list of things that John most enjoyed in his life coupled with a great regret of the things in life he had not and might not ever experience.
John Keats channeled his consuming thoughts into this sonnet. The sonnet has three quatrains and a couplet. The most apparent theme of Keats’ sonnet is that of time and the uncertainty of a tomorrow. This theme strings together the three quatrains, each beginning with “when”, a word that magnifies the fleeting nature of time. This notion is expressed most directly in the first quatrain by the first line “When I have fears that I may cease to be”. The quatrain continues on to touch upon some of Keats’ most concrete and immediate desires such as his wishes to publish the countless literary works currently trapped in his mind. He also laments his relative lack of knowledge in comparison to the knowledge contained in the “high-piled books” that he has yet to read. This is another slight against himself and his vulnerability to death at such a young age. Keats, obviously a man driven by his work, views his lack of knowledge as a lack of possible material for his poems. This is even further hinted when he flashes a bit of the knowledge he already posses with his use of the word “charact’ry” coined by Shakespeare, and meaning hand written or printed letters.
Keats’ second quatrain shifts from the traditional, education driven forms of inspiration for his work, to the romantic material that nature’s settings provide. His description of heavenly views in this quatrain hint at the notion that even with all the time in the world, it is possible that nature is a boundless source of inspiration and creation.
Keats is, of course, aware that no poem explaining the pleasures of life would be complete without a shout out to love. Thus, he wrote the third quatrain. He alludes to the perfect woman as the fairy like “fair creature of an hour”. This woman embodies all the love that that he has yet to experience. He mourns that his life has not yet been touched by the “fairy power” of love.
Finally, Keats seems to take some solace in the concluding couplet in which he professes that he will outdo death through “love and fame”. The final thought of his sonnet “I stand and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink” is effectively the credo that Keats has adopted to live his life by. He needs to achieve Love and Fame to avoid “nothingness”. This line justifies all preceding lines of the poems as it explains his great emphasis on the quality of his works and the anger that he feels that life might cheat him by taking away possible materials and tools that he needs to become immortal in the shelves of man.
(815)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Willy was...A Good Father
Contrary to popular opinion in English class Royal Willy was a good father. No human can claim to be perfect, and Willy was by no stretch of the imagination a perfect parent but he was far from a bad parent. It is impossible to be a good parent. Our class accepted the notion how a child turns out is a reflection of the way they were raised, thus a judgement of the aptitude of the parents. This is wrong. Willy fulfilled his obligation to Biff and Happy in a manner that surpassed that of most parents. He maintained a stable household that fully supported both of his sons in their ambitions as they grew up. Willy also preached admirable and ethical lessons to the kids each day. His overwhelming belief in the sanctity hard work and the American dream can not be seen as harming either one of his boys development. His emphasis on his belief in their abilities was his way of supporting the boys. Unfortunately, society failed to help teach Biff and Happy the ways of the world and that hard work must be steered in the right direction for it to be effective. Furthermore, I believe the greatest fault for Biff and Happy’s “failure” can be accredited to the two boys. While Willy worked himself to exhaustion for countless hours in a job he didn’t even like, Biff failed to apply himself in anything he didn’t enjoy (all things not pertaining to girls and football). Willy provided an example, Biff simply did not follow.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
In The Doll House Isben presents every possible aspect of a housewives life. In doing so his novel takes on an element of female empowerment as it demonstrates the countless unexpected hardships that three different one-time housewives and must encounter as they each struggle create an identity and respectable life for themselves and the many people who rely on them. Through the characters Nora, Mrs. Linde, the nanny Isben characterizes three distinctly different socio-economic situation in which women of the time period each encountered equal but distinct difficulties in providing for themselves and those that they found a maternal obligation to support. Mrs. Linde’s sacrifice of her own happiness in order to fulfill her obligation is an example of the often contradicting forces that call upon women to attempt the impossible. For Mrs. Linde her decision to care for her dieing mother and younger brothers demonstrates a problem that characterizes the strife of a middle class women who finds that herself effectively out of luck and left with the responsibilities of a man without the status or legal equality of a man burdened with the same responsibilities. This is a situation that Nora also faces in a different respect when she is forced to take a loan to save Torvald’s life but society once again interferes, deeming her far inferior to men thus not allowing her to take a loan without her husband’s approval.
The way that Isben outlines and portrays the lives of these women gives me the impression that he likely sympathized with the unfair predicaments that women of his time period found themselves subject to. This plight is only further emphasized by Nora’s final decision to leave her husband as she comes to terms with the reality of her inferiority even in the eyes of someone she believed to be her greatest admirer, Torvald. With this eventual realization Isben shows that even the most well off, Nora finds herself in the same dark place that Mrs. Linde and the Nanny characterized earlier.
(340)
The way that Isben outlines and portrays the lives of these women gives me the impression that he likely sympathized with the unfair predicaments that women of his time period found themselves subject to. This plight is only further emphasized by Nora’s final decision to leave her husband as she comes to terms with the reality of her inferiority even in the eyes of someone she believed to be her greatest admirer, Torvald. With this eventual realization Isben shows that even the most well off, Nora finds herself in the same dark place that Mrs. Linde and the Nanny characterized earlier.
(340)
Monday, February 9, 2009
Hamlet's Emotional Detach
Throughout the first four acts of the play Hamlet is presented by Shakespeare as a composed, intellectually aware individual, who is very aware of the emotions that drive him to seek revenge against his uncle. However at the start of act V when Hamlet is presented with the death Ophelia, a death he is completely liable for, he seems to be numb to the event. While I admit that he obviously is filled with rage and temporarily loses his better senses when he attacks Laertes. In general though, I noticed that Hamlet was really unable to sincerely embrace the fact that Ophelia was dead. To me it seemed like the his heart has become numb and detached from the realities of the life he is living. In his quest to avenge his father he has sacrificed his sole, his feelings, and his life. I believe that Shakespeare uses the scene with Ophelia's death to present a theme of the unexpected draw backs of a revenge driven mind. I also believe that Hamlet has spent such a long period of time pretending to be mad that this has also contributed to his detachment from reality. His inability to sincerely interact with family members and most friends created a gap between Hamlet and many of the stabilizing forces in his life. With his mother thinking he is crazy and his lover thinking he the same, I believe that it would be very difficult for someone to stay the same person. Living a lie thus proves to be the other contributing factor in the deterioration of hamlet's emotional capacities.
Hamlet's Emotional Detach
Throughout the first four acts of the play Hamlet is presented by Shakespeare as a composed, intellectually aware individual, who is very aware of the emotions that drive him to seek revenge against his uncle. However at the start of act V when Hamlet is presented with the death Ophelia, a death he is completely liable for, he seems to be numb to the event. While I admit that he obviously is filled with rage and temporarily loses his better senses when he attacks Laertes. In general though, I noticed that Hamlet was really unable to sincerely embrace the fact that Ophelia was dead. To me it seemed like the his heart has become numb and detached from the realities of the life he is living. In his quest to avenge his father he has sacrificed his sole, his feelings, and his life. I believe that Shakespeare uses the scene with Ophelia's death to present a theme of the unexpected draw backs of a revenge driven mind. I also believe that Hamlet has spent such a long period of time pretending to be mad that this has also contributed to his detachment from reality. His inability to sincerely interact with family members and most friends created a gap between Hamlet and many of the stabilizing forces in his life. With his mother thinking he is crazy and his lover thinking he the same, I believe that it would be very difficult for someone to stay the same person. Living a lie thus proves to be the other contributing factor in the deterioration of hamlet's emotional capacities.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Antigone
Antigone presents a paradox because her actions appear to be done from love of her family yet when Ismene offers to share the guilt/pain with antigone, Antigone rebuffs her and says that Ismene did not take the same risk and therefore does not deserve to share the honor. Although Antigone and Ismene are sisters they are very different. Antigone sees things in black and white, either Ismene is a "true sister" or a "traitor to her family". Antigone cannot see that Ismene is scared of the consequences and feels helpless/powerless to take action against Creon because she fears retribution. Ismene does not approve of what Antigone is doing, Ismene thinks Antigone's choice is reckless and Antigone doesn't realize how it will after other people. However, Ismene still appreciates what Antigone is trying to do for their brother, saying Antigone is "a loyal friend indeed to those who love you." On the other hand, Antigone is calls Ismene a traitor and is very harsh towards her. Antigone cannot see the middle ground that Ismene sees. Antigone see only that Ismene is not helping her not that Ismene is praising her courage, risking her own safety by promising to no tell anyone what Antigone is doing, and possible yearning to have the strength to help Antigone and honor her brother.
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