Week 16 Literary Blog Post

Literary Analysis 

Week 16

Close reading

This week for my literary analysis I wanted to focus on "Recitatif" a narrative written by author Toni Morrison. This narrative attracted my attention because of the topic of race discussed or in other words exposed by this whole piece of text. The section I wanted to focus on was on pg. 1174 at the very bottom of the page were they discuss how Roberta and our narrator become friends and the reason they were teases constantly at their orphanage. This section was also very eye opening because it highlights the aspect of bullying from an author that is older than the young generations and how bullying in the past is still so similar to now. Both in the narrator and Roberta were teased for multiple things that in reality weren't an issue but to a child could be devastating. Morrison explains "We didn't like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play with us because we weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were dumped.(pg.1174)". In this quote you can see how they were teased just because their parents didn't die and they became orphans but just because they were given up they were rejected by their peers. This is a common story when children are different they are excluded and teased for their differences but on a good note the narrator and Roberta stayed together. "we looked like salt and pepper standing there and thats what the other kids called us sometimes.(pg.1174)". Since they were rejected for the same things they became friends and this made them create something positive from the negativity they were presented with and that fact was interesting in the first place. Although it was a small section I believe it was important because it was the start of a relationship and helped both girls through tough times. 

Literary Analysis Week 14

Literary Analysis 

Week 14

This week for my analysis I chose to focus on the poem from the author Leopold Sedar Senghor ,"Black Women". This was a poem that caught my attention because of the imagery it gave from the descriptions of black women and just how beautiful they are. Just from the depth that Senghor goes into saying "And your beauty strikes my heart like an eagle's lightning flash"(pg.680). This comparison of how black women's beauty is so powerful it is compared to lightening and helps me as a reader understand how much the beauty affected the narrator in the poem. I wonder why the author related "Naked women black women or dark women" because was it to magnify how he believed black women were disrespected and just subjected to their beauty only. The tone it also is giving off with the repeating of those lines is black women beauty is the way to determine their value and also the poem continues to show the degrading actions happening to these "black women". Senghor writes, "Moaning under the hands of the conqueror, Your deep contralto voice is the spiritual song of the Beloved, Naked women, dark woman"(pg.680-681). The poem goes on to explaining how the "black woman" had to experience being raped by her conqueror and he wasn't able to resist her beauty. Making it even more clear how all of this imagery of how beautiful "black woman" are is true and they get even more credit for being strong by being able to bear all of these trails being made transparent in this poem. Senghor poem had me interested the whole time and the shortness of the poem made me want me especially because I don't understand fully of how it ended. For example
"I sing your passing beauty and fix it for all Eternity, before jealous Fate reduces you to ashes to nourish the roots of life". In my opinion it sounds like the "black woman" losers since it says she was reduced to ashes but I hope I am wrong on my guess. 

Literary Analysis Blog Post Week 13 Close Reading

Literary Blog Post

Close Reading 

Week 13 

For my close reading I chose to do Anna Akhmatova "Requiem" and focus mostly on the first and second page because the imagery she uses is amazing to give insight. Through her words alone you knew the danger she was in her country and how the conflict going on during the 1930's was ripping apart the country. It is interesting reading the introduction then connecting that to the reading and seeing how Anna had to overcome her husband and son being arrested and also friends dying in prison camps. Anna delivers imagery that just helps readers see the oppression that her poems conveyed by saying "Mountains bow down to this grief, Mighty rivers ceded to flow, But the prison gates hold firm, And behind them are the "prisoners burrows" And mortal woe"(pg.598). Right away the main topic is given to readers the feeling of grief so much that "mountains bow down" a metaphor that helps readers understand the superfluous amount of stress. Also referring to both her son and husband being behind bars that Anna describes as "firm" which shows the hope she had for them getting out soon. It is also hard to ignore all of the times Anna compared her situation to those in other parts of the world who are living it up. Anna explains "For someone the sunset luxuriate, We wouldn't know, we are those who everywhere, Hear only the rasp of the hateful key"(pg.568). The author is in a country in shambles and it is hard to be in such distress when you know there are people living in peace. In the text I also sense a feeling of tiredness of all of the violence and the mistreatment of the citizens over the country's chaos was wrong and her family and friends suffering in result. 

Literary Analysis Week 12

Literary Analysis 

Week 12

"From a Room of One's Own"

The story I was choosing to do my analysis on is a piece from Virginia Woolf named "From a Room of One's Own" and it was truly intriguing and hooked me instantly as a reader. That is one technique I noticed right away and it is something I try to do when written my essay's. Woolf continues in the text by making her stance clear on women and how they are mistreated for not being made equal as men. It is clear that in the beginning of the writing you can see how Woolf mocks men by recreating the moments before they wrote the fiction they had in literature about women. Then she described the famous Oxford and Cambridge University had a library that had a rule of "Only Fellows and Scholars " which basically meant no women allowed. Woolf say's "was a Beadle, I was a women. This was the turf; there was the path"( pg. 340 ) meaning that the men had a library that was supposed to be famous but how could this library be filled with knowledge but not enough to understand that women and men should be equal. I also believe it is real insulting that the men walked around being referred to as scholar's while women were barely being able to be educated. Also Woolf exposed how in the library they had books on women but written by men which is all wrong and the book should be listed under fiction since a man can't tell a women story. At that point all women had dislike of the library and its narrow minded views in terms of sex and who has certain rights. Woolf writes "That a famous library has been cursed by a women is a matter of complete indifference to a famous library"(pg.342). This text continues on describing the injustices this library has and the disconnect it shows by being men only. 

Week 9 Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis 

Week 9 

Ghalib "Couplets

This poem by Ghalib is a pleasure of mine to do a literary analysis about because of how great the poem is and how the reach of the poem is endless. The section I want to focus on is on pg. 594 and the poem named "Couplets". The beginning of the poems starts like the author Ghalib is speaking to himself and in the poetry I have ever read the style is always first person but this one started with the author first speaking to himself internally to talking to God. My favorite thing about the beginning is the line where it say's "Ghalib, it's no use forcing your way with love". Reading this made me feel the wisdom implanted in the sentence to wear Ghalib that love is not something you can just control you have go about obtaining it another way. It was like the author was the character in the poem speaking to himself internally then it turned from a talk with self, to a talk with God. "Dear God" is the way the third stanza begins to make the poem even more interesting defining the norm of a poem only being able to interpreted only through deep thought but this poem was straight forward. Although it does have hidden messages in the stanza they still are straight forward enough for anyone to understand them. For example it says "but what can I do if the heart itself proves to be an enemy of freedom?". Clearly the author is trying to express his confusion of love because a heart that is enemy of freedom means it rather be locked down or I'm guessing in a relationship so that would make it not a free heart. To me this gives a transparent understanding that Ghalib was looking for love in the poem and trusted in God to give him the key to his love dilemma so his heart could continue being the enemy of freedom and locked down with another persons heart. This poem does a great job of imagery and introducing readers to a new style of poetry. 

Week 8 Literary Analysis: Close Reading

Literary Analysis 

Close Reading 

Week 8

On pg. 465 the last poem in Walt Whitman's collection was very interesting to me. Most of his poems left me puzzled a little just trying to follow the topic of the poem. However this last poem "O Captain! My Captain" grabbed my attention because it was clear and towards the beginning the poem rhymed which was pleasing for me as a reader. And after rhyming for a while Whitman began painting a picture of the ship these sailors where aboard and how the Captain was dead. Ironically the trip they went on as a crew was difficult, prolonged, and the Captain dies right when the ship arrives to shore. "he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done"pg. 465. Even after going through so much on their voyage the Captain was dead and the unnamed character narrating is heart broken that the Captain is no longer with him. "But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead". This crew member was close to the Captain and was not taking his death well. Reading this poem felt more like a homage monologue for the Captain explaining their voyage and the way their dead Captain looked. This poem also was very interesting to me because it has my name is incorporated in one of the stanzas "From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won". My name means winner so their ship was the victor and after all of there travels and victory their Captain dies at the home stretch. The imagery and descriptiveness of this section of writing make reading this easy and it could also have a different meaning. This voyage and Captain could be a symbolic meaning for something different like something meaningful to Whitman and is letting his readers interpret their own meaning of his poem. After reading this I looked at the very bottom of the page and it say's that this was paying respect to Whitman's favorite public figure Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated. Making a huge connection to my last point of Whitman having a different meaning for this  poem. And honestly writing this close reading I looked back at the poem and is the only reason I saw the note on the bottom telling who the Captain signified. 

Week 7 Analysis: Close Reading

Close Reading

Week 7

I wanted to focus my close reading on the bottom of pg. 98 the last paragraph of the section of text. This short paragraph grabbed my attention by how the words brought the act of reading to life with the language used. "And I had a great curiosity to talk to the book, as I though they did". Reading this made me wonder if this section the writers point of view is from one of a person first approaching learning how to read. The word curiosity shows how the experience with books was a new one and seeing "master" and "Dick" read it had our writer interested with the skill of reading. This section is profound in my opinion from the mystery it creates while reading, making readers puzzled on this odd ending of the chapter. Imagery helps this section stand out also causing slight glimpses into the reading forcing your mind to imagine just what the character was doing or how he did it. "And then put it to my ears to, when alone, in hopes it would answer me". After reading this made me wonder the movement the character in this scene and the faces he made waiting for the book to somehow speak to him. Allowing him to indulge in reading just like his "master" would do in his downtime. Or another way of thinking about this section is it could be used not literally and showing someone who can read but not as well as "master" and "Dick" in the story. This could be a short section of someone trying to understand a book but in being perplexed chose to listen to the book in hopes it would speak the words from the page "And I have been very much concerned when I found it remained silent". I interpreted this thinking it meant when the books made sense they would talk but the concern came about when they were silent or in other words hard to understand. Lastly I believe my first suggestion is more correct because of the newest of the language given in this section when it comes to reading books. 

Literary Analysis Week 6

Literary Analysis 

Week 6

3/1/18

Ode to Tropical Agriculture

In this section of text on pg. 388-389, "Ode to Tropical Agriculture" is an imaginary rollercoaster of a poem while reading. I really appreciate the theme of showing love for the beautiful surroundings us humans live in everyday. The words are jumping off the page and shows the connection and time the author Andres Bello took in writing his poetry. Although in the short introduction before the poetry on pg. 388 it says that in the poetry "what he praises is not wilderness but human cultivation". Or in other words he most likely appreciated the beauty of the wilderness but in his poem he was focus on how great humans take the wilderness and transform it into even more beauty. Although I believe that he was praising the wilderness in saying things like "it ask no care by human arts, but freely yields its fruit". Then continues the admiration in the future lines by using literary devices like metaphors to describe the growing process the plants go through, "It grows with swiftness, and when it is outgrown its full-grown children take its place". In this excerpt from the poems gives readers a bit of text to read between the lines to understand how he talks about the children of the plants. This type of writing being the most popular because it makes readers like me think and dive deeper into the poem of what it means. The last sentence of the introduction paragraph for Andres Bello explains how poet's should be in touch with their surroundings because it can play a huge role and gaining inspiration from "their native landscapes". Bello believed that geography will shape the future for extreme and profound art for future artist. As a fan of poverty I understand the inspiration you can absorb from the setting you are in and it can inspire some powerful imagery poems that Andres Bello sees taking over the future of how artist approach their craft. 

Week 5 Analysis: Close Reading

Close Reading 

Week 5

Matsuo Basho 

  The part of the poems I want to focus my close reading the beginning paragraph of pg.617 "From the Narrow Road to the Deep North", this first poem in my opinion mark the genius of Basho's travel to the Northwest. This was a section where he pondered deeply on his journey and in words making sense of this five month journey by sea. I am intrigued by the use of the word "wanderlust" in the reading just putting the exclamation on the future voyage. Also Basho uses the vocabulary that of wanderlust to explain what he meant in the sentence before where he stated ,"Many, too, are the ancients who perished on the road", explains why he choose to cruise the sea instead of continuing  to depart on road. Then Basho began to paint a picture for us in the poem by explaining the length of the journey. "Floating away their lives on boats", or in other words a metaphor to mark the beginnings of a long journey. Although all of this evidence might make me think that this section was written at the beginning of the journey in the informational section of the text it say's these writings were an idealized version of the travel and not a diary. So this start of the story might not have been from the beginning but a start of writing at any point of the joinery describing when they first sailed off on this travel. Anyway, I might be thinking to hard so the reality that this is from the begging of this challenge ahead of Basho and he began this writing when it actually started to be finish by the end. Basho used this section to begin his story telling through poems to mark the start of a journey that him and his companion Sora was about to embark on and used imagery to grab his readers early. In other words, the author used the introduction to show of his skillful poetry skills which gave readers the interest of continuing the story. 

Week 4 Analysis: Close Reading

Analysis 

Week4

Close Reading 

On pg. 424 there began a story "From The Journey to the West", and it was very intriguing given that most of the characters were animals. Also the stone monkey who was the main character came to life in a very unique way. Or in other words a very confusing way because he was basically born from a stone egg but the way the stone egg was even created had me mind boggled. I understand that this is fictional and this story has a way deeper meaning. In my opinion I believe that this story is history just told in a more creative way with animal characters and the confusing ways of how things come to life in the story has an actual meaning given the context of the history. I notice that the author uses imagery the most given the highest  detailed information on the smallest of information and uses this to probably turn this story which may be history into a fun story anyone no matter the age would understand. Looking deeper into the reading helps me realize that this is not just any story but history told from the early modern Chinese vernacular. Also the animals are not just used as characters but metaphorically used to describe an actual figure in history. For example the stone monkey could actually be a person in history who was brought to this earth in a special way as an infant but later saved his people by doing a heroic act just as the stone monkey did in this piece of text. The most interesting thing about this text has to be the fact that history is hidden in a fiction story and given the time period where the public was looking for more everyday vernacular instead of scholarly literature. Given this fact to input the supply where the public's demand was located instead of telling straight history the scholarly way instead put it into a fictional story with different characters to appeal to everyone no matter their class or education level. 

Week3 Analysis : Ch'Un-Hyang

Literary Analysis 

Week3

"The Song of Ch'Un-Hyang" was one of the more interesting readings I had this week and it was a part of a performance script. Although one part that absolutely caught my eye while doing my readings. When Ch'Un-Hyand was beaten and with each stroke that she was given she weeped loudly short poems. This style of writing first made me notice this specific part of text and it just stands out from the rest of the structure of writing. The author gave every stroke she was given their own column, also this helped me understand how important this part was. It was a cruel act that was commanded to happen from the governor since Ch'Un-Hyang didn't let him have his way with her. Even though she was already a married women but he didn't care and order her to be beat. In this part of the story the theme of the strength of Ch'Un-Hyang and how she was able to withstand the strokes she was given because off the thought of bring faithful to her husband. For example on pg. 84 " Two spouses are faithful, Two husbands there cannot be: Through my body i die forever, I'll never forget master Yi". This quote shows how committed Ch'Un-Hyang so being beaten unlawfully was horrible but she was strong in remembering her husband. Also this shows how much love Ch'Un-Hyang  had for her husband and not even letting a man in power make her unfaithful. This performance brings back thoughts of a time like this in reality to where women had few rights. Ch'Un-Hyang did nothing wrong but say no to the governor in a polite way and still she was beaten and publicly humiliated. After a total of twenty-five strokes given to her she was left covered with blood and bathing in her own tears. On the other hand I respect Ch'Un-Hyang for the unfailing loyalty she had to her husband and by taking those strokes basically for him. She didn't let anyone come in the way of her marriage and that is true love. 

W2 Analysis of Mary Wollstonecraft

Literary Analysis
Mary Wollstonecraft
Week#2

Out of all of the reading we were assigned this second week of school and first week of actually diving in to the books. There was one piece of text that stood out, that even had me bring the topic up in conversation outside of school. This particular text was when we were introduced to Mary Wollstonecraft. For one her last name is intriguing just from all of the word that put together one name. Which reminded me that she was born in a totally different time period and helped me adjust my mind to the late 1700's. Reading what she did showed me what strength she had to speak up for the rights of her own sex,while doing it in such of a compelling way. I appreciated how she first did The Vindication of the Rights Men speaking to all men no matter the race in 1791, and then turning around to do The Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In doing this she fist challenged men with writing about their own rights and how they can be changed for the better. In her era this was unheard of a women contributing to the Enlightenment age. Mary made her ideas even more breaking news by, one year later speak up for the rights of women. This essay in 1792 was seen as radicalism for the ideas she introduced to explain how women are treated similar to slaves. And she had a huge point in her time women received no education and unequal rights trapped them into the same position as a slave. With their husbands as there masters and nothing they could do to further themselves individually.
It is even more profound to know that in her whole lifetime she was mocked for her views and her having a child out of wedlock was more focused on then her founding of feminism. Mary Wollstonecraft was such a fearless innovator and it's ashamed that she wasn't recognized till century's later in 1960. Mary was before her time and comments in her writing like "This is only keeping them in rank and file, it is true. Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a plaything"(pg.136). In this quote Mary was exposing how men in her day would keep women uneducated and obedient to them because they rather a slave then a person who might at times challenge them. Mary seen education as power to women and she understood that men believed if women had education they would no longer be their obedient wives and family members. She seen a future much brighter for women and she didn't have a problem expressing how she felt. In the text Mary's tone and characterization of herself is extremely intriguing. Reading this made you see Ms. Wollstonecraft as a unmovable force because she was mocked yet continued to stand by her writings and the tone in her comparisons of marriage to slavery, showed you she meant business. Although her community drowned out her views by making a scandal of her life she was still immovable and her essay's lived on past her time to be appreciated.