Diving?!?!?

Conjoined bc i can't pass the multipule choice!

Well because I could not pass the multiple-choice test twice!!!! I am here to talk to you about the poem “Conjoined”. We read this poem a while ago in class and answered questions on it. I did not do very well with that either, but it was because we had a sub and she was no help. We really needed Mr. D back when we read these poems. At first I did not understand anything the poem was saying, but I do not think anyone did. I had to read each stanza one by one and tear apart each meaning of the word. Once I got through the first paragraph things started to become a little bit clearer. In the poem “Conjoined” by Judith Minty talks about a man and a woman’s marriage. No one said love and marriage would be easy. In the poem Conjoined by Judith Minty the author uses literary devices such as symbolism, imagery, metaphors and descriptive language. The author uses these devices to show how a marriage can be unhealthy and unhappy. To most people marriage is nothing but being in love with a person and being happy around that person forever. However Minty does not agree. Minty uses descriptive words such as “freaks”, “heavy”, and “monster” to describe her husband and their marriage. This makes Minty’s outlook on marriage to be terrible and sad feeling, even almost angry at some points. In Minty’s poem she does not really talk about being in love with her husband and the word she describes her relationship with him is very disturbing. She uses words like “Two-headed Calf” and “one body to suck at a mother’s tits.” In a happy marriage people use words like “ two peas in a pod” or something about being best friends and getting along. Also when people are married they are usually willing to share things and be happy about it, but Minty describes it as if it’s a pain to share things with her husband. These descriptive words make it seem like the people are forced to live with each other and it is the worst thing ever. Another example is the first stanza states “ The onion in my cupboard, a monster actually.” The author is using symbolism to symbolize the onion or the monster as her husband. She also uses words like freak to symbolize her hers husbund and their relationship. Not many people like onions or monsters. Onions make you cry when you cut them up and monsters make you cry and scare you when you see them. By using the onion or the monster, it shows how she really does not get along or care for her husband or their relationship. Another symbol is the last stanza in the first paragraph that states, “Where it pressed and grew against each other.” This symbolizes how the more time the couple spent together the worse their relationship got. It is almost like they tried to grow together, but they kept bumping heads and colliding. Nothing was going or growing right.  She wanted one thing and he wanted the complete opposite. The onion grew almost into the other onion causing it to be deformed into each other and messed up, hence the name of the poem “conjoined”. When the author talks about being or feeling invisible, she is using imagery. The author states, “ Ah but man/don’t slice onions in the kitchen, seldom/ see what is invisible”, now she isn’t literary invisible. She uses this word to show how she feels alone in the relationship. Maybe not exactly alone but almost like she maybe is the only one trying to make things work. It also shows how her husband does not really help out in the house. A lot of men do not help in the kitchen but in the poem the author makes it as her husband never helps with anything. As you can the see the poem makes marriage an ugly thing by using metaphors. For example when the author states “one transparent skin” she is referring to the fact that the onion has many layers that form the onions into one. This gives the idea that marriage is bad thing and people have to form unnaturally with their spouse. When people get married they usually go together and get along with each other easily.  As you can see through out the poem you can see the literary devices, symbolism, descriptive words and imagery, used by Judith Minty. “Conjoined” was a good poem and it was very well explained with the use of these few literary devices. There is many literary devices through out the poem, but these are just a few that stood out to me. I understood these the most, while others were still hard to follow in the meaning. 

Maus

For my article I found one that I thought was really interesting because it is an entire page of just facts about the holocaust. I also thought it was really interesting because Art Spiegelman was really like scared the whole time in the book, because he wants to make sure that the “story” of the holocaust doesn’t water down the real events of the holocaust. When I read an article like the one I choose I fell like it waters it down so much because its just like fact after fact after fact and it almost makes me feel like I’m studying for school.  I really don’t care about what the article says because the facts are just sentences that have no meaning behind them. For example when I read “state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire”. Its like those are just words on a page and they have no really meaning, or even if they do have more meaning for you, I can obviously never portray the depth of the tragedy of the holocaust. So I think that people think that when Art Spiegelman cuts in and out of the story and makes sure for a fact that you know its just a story I think that is exactly what needs to happen because then when you read Mause you can see the pictures and you get the reminders that its just a story so its like you can put at least a little meaning behind the facts and also you keep in mind that its just a story so in the back of your head you know that it was even worse then the horrors expressed in the book. So I think that the way Art Spiegelman did Mause was perfect.

Cats Cradle

There is a lot of post modern examples in Cats Cradle. We may not be able to find all of them, but there is still a lot in the book that we can find. The many examples he talks about in the book are very different from today's view of things. The book in a way really has no meaning I don not think. Its like the meaning of the book gives the book itself no. Throughout the book some chapters and sayings are hard to find. The meaning of the sayings and chapters sometimes make you think is there really a meaning at all. Like in the book it says “Jesus is my hero” when the book has like a meaning of starising religion but not really religion more like saterising anything that people think could lead them to an ultimate truth, and maybe he is even saying Jesus is his hero just because he is such a religious figure and gives so much power to people that he is kinda jealous of him. Although I do not know if they even new who he Jesus really is. They might not know the real meaning if Jesus and being a hero. But I am not really sure, because today in our sacratic circle people talked about how he may not mean it when he says “Jesus us my hero”, you never know. And really maybe there is no meaning at all maybe it is just a curve ball thrown into the book to mess up the meaning for some and not for others of something. Although he could have wrote the book and had ment to put in a meaning. Maybe he just wrote random things. Or we just do not look deep enough into the text to understand the meaning.

Brave New World Yay!!

For my Brave New World essay I am still not sure exactly what I am going to write about, but one thing I know for sure is that sir Ken Robinsons video, it made some very good points on like how society has made kids more like a machine or a conveyor belt and not like life as it should be, because I think that there are some very good points in that video that would make my argument better, and in my argument I will try to say that the world state isn't good and that it takes away too much from what life is supposed to be. Another thing I plan to talk about it or at least reference is the tempest. Because the title of the book is from the tempest so obviously the author must have had the book in mind. Also I see so easy connections to the tempest like the savage thing and how the savage is so mistreated and treated badly just because he is a savage so that is like in both A Brave New World and the Tempest. That is all I have planned right now to write about but I am sure once I start the essay more will come to me. Because there is so much in A Brave New World that really you take from anything and I think that there is a lot of things to talk about how they try to make life like a machine and I think that is what I will base a big part of my essay on. Maybe I will talk a little bit about 1984 and like how in 1984 they try to control every aspect of peoples lives just like they do in Brave New World.

Brave New World and Sir Ken Robinson

After watching the video in class I knew there was something that connected to Brave New World. There are many parallels that can be connected between the book we are reading and the video by Sir Ken Robinson. The authors main point in the video we watch was that the education system is not very sufficient. Today there is a thing called A.D.D and supposedly many kids have it. A.D.D causes kids to not be able to pay attention in class and loose focus very easily. Kids are given these pills to help them focus and pay attention. Now in Brave New World there is something very similar to this.

In Brave New World in the World State if your feeling down or sad you take a soma. A soma something that will make you “happy” in their world. But there is no way to tell whether or not the soma actually works. The text from the book says “nothing short of a pistol shot could have called Lenina back from her soma-holiday” (144).This makes me wonder if the soma really works or even the A.D.D medicine given to children today. To be honest I think its all in their head, but I don't have A.D.D so I don't know whether or not it works. Another parallel between the book and video is that kids today are “manufactured”. Today when we go to school were have all different teachers, different classes, but we are with the same age group from pre - school all the way to senior year in high school. Robin questions this situation. He argues that some kids may be smarter than others even if they are younger or older. He also thinks that children all learn differently; like with different discipline at different times. Now this is the opposite in Brave New World. In Brave New World the people are programed to do exactly what they are told and when to do it.

Another confusing and weird story!

Okay well im soo confuse with the story already, but I'm going to give this a shot! "Wheels must turn steadily, but can not turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as sturdy as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment." To me this meant that there should be some kind of certain power that can control everyone. It reminded me of 1984, which took me a while to understand too. From my point of view this was Mustapha’s way of interpreting totalitarianism, and that the government always knows best no matter what the situation is. Mustapha said that those who experienced strong feelings were unstable once again like 1984 when the two main characters fall in love. When he refers to these kinds of people he say, “No wonder these poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy” (41). According to Mustapha, family, impulse, feeling, desire, and monogamy require such strong feelings that cause people to become unstable and they therefore need someone to “tend” to them. A hypnopaedic proverb said, “…every one belongs to every one else” (40).. This statement kind of confused, but I think it also cleared some things up for me in a way too. Monogamy can't be alive if everyone belonged to someone, because exclusive relationships wouldn't be good. The same thing goes with the family situation I think. Technically you don't really have a family your just related to one another in theory. There is no proof of you being related by blood. This causes people to want to do things like have a family and a special someone, because they aren't suppose to. Just like teenagers. To me the more you tell these kids NO you can not do that the more they are going to want to do it. But these people have the choice just like teenagers to decide whether they will be smart and obey their parents or the government for instance. Or disobey them.