Pub 5: "What Will Your Verse Be?"

                                                                   THEME: LOVE

Song: Lauryn Hill "Ex-Factor"

Poem #1: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds" William Shakespeare

Poem #2: "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone" W.H. Auden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE-bnWqLqxE

Lauryn Hill's "Ex-Factor" is a powerful song where she describes the pain of being in a relationship and trying to make it work with her lover, yet problems always arise and get in the way of their love. In the first verse of the song, Hill's tone is desperate as she sings the difficulty of loving her man.

"Loving you is like a battle
And we both end up with scars
Tell me, who I have to be
To get some reciprocity
No one loves you more than me
And no one ever will"

Tone(s): hurt, sadness, pain, defeat. 

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds" - William Shakespeare

This beautiful poem by William Shakespeare, defines true love and how it is unwavering no matter the circumstance. Lines 2-7 describes how pure and strong love should be when it is found by two people.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken"

Tone(s): confidence, strength

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone" - W.H. Auden

The first line of this poem captivates the reader as the author illustrates how he feels after the death of his husband. Throughout the poem, Auden provides visualization while reading to represent the death of his loved one and how the world from his point of view stops. The third stanza shows the pain that he feels from being separated from love: 

"He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."

Tone(s): sorrow, grief, mourning

The poems and song all have an underlying theme which is love. Love however, is felt in different ways for each author. Lauryn hill experiences love that is a struggle to hold on to; she wants to make it work but it is not possible because of mistreatment that she is receiving from her man. Shakespeare on the contrary, speaks of a love that is true and firm, that does not bend no matter what and he strongly believes in this type of love when it is shared by two people. The last type of love is that of broken love; a love that is lost when death separates a couple from one another. W.H. Auden speaks of his broken heart and how nothing matters anymore now that the love of his life is gone from the world. These pieces of poetry revealed to me how love can come in many different forms. Love cannot be measured, it is not easy and it can hurt any time. 

The Tragic Hero

One of the first plays read in class in the Drama unit is "Antigone". Prior to reading the play, we learned the concept of what a tragic hero in a piece of literature is.

Tragic Hero:

• doomed to make a serious error in judgment made by an irreversible mistake
• meet a tragic death
• audience is affected by pity and fear
• born into nobility
• actions result in an increase of self-awareness and self-knowledge

"A man cannot become a hero until he realizes his own downfall" - Aristotle 

In the play "Antigone", the main character Antigone fits all the criteria of a tragic hero. Her decision to bury her fallen brother despite the law is what leads to her downfall. In this lesson, I learned in one  of our many fishbowls that a person can either believe that their destiny is lead by existentialism or fate. Existentialism is the belief that a person's outcomes are base on individual decisions while fate occurs beyond a person's control. I believe that a mix of existentialism and fate happen in life to every single person and that one cannot be exist with out the other.

                                             

Pub #1: Written Law v. Moral Law

The theme that is displayed throughout the play "Antigone", which also carries out the plot, is the severity of how important it is to obey "Man's law" or else face harsh consequences. However, there is an underlying theme that is often neglected when discussing the characters and their actions and that theme is gender inequality. After being ousted as the one to bury Polyneices, Antigone is victim to sexism from her uncle and ruler of Thebes, Creon for defying his decree. The conflict between Antigone and Creon represents how men used their power to show their superiority over women and how little they were respected when standing up for themselves. 
Taking into account the setting and time period of this play, it is widely known that women were living in a male dominated society, with slim to none authority in levels of hierarchy. In the play, the Sentry initially tells Creon that a man has buried Polyneices (line 268-71), and Creon is upset upon hearing the news. Discovering that it is Antigone who is the criminal to perform the forbidden burial rite upon her brother enrages Creon even more. "I swear I am no man and she the man if she can win this and not pay for it" (Creon 528-529). Creon's initial reaction after learning that a man has disobeyed his decree to hearing that it was in fact woman makes him feel insecure and inferior to Antigone. The Sentry telling Creon that it was a man who committed the crime is very significant because the men did not for a second even reflect and think that a woman would have the audacity to perform such ritual even though it was one of their rights. Although the law was to be upheld for all citizens of Thebes, a woman stepping out of her boundaries and defying a man on an authoritative level was seen as the highest form of disrespect. 

Throughout the rest of the play, Creon continues to spout misogynistic remarks towards Antigone, even speaking ill of her towards her husband-to-be, Haemon. "Do not, my son, banish your good senses through pleasure in a woman, since you know that the embrace grows cold when an evil woman shares your bed and home" (Creon 699-702). The words that he relays to his son are values that he himself believes and tries to impose on him. He also goes on to say "If we must accept defeat, let it be from a man, we must not let people say that a woman beat us" (Creon 730-731). Accepting defeat from a woman is seen as a form of humiliation as well as bruise to the ego in Creon's eyes. This line from Creon is a perfect example of the amount of respect men held for women, clearly displaying the imbalance of equality between both genders. 

Antigone, seen as the martyr in this play, boldly went against the law and followed her moral conscience to give her brother the proper burial that was righteously ordained by the gods. Although Creon was overturned by the blank of his edict, not everyone felt the same as him and believed that she deserved to die. "Yet how could I win a greater share of glory than putting my own brother in his grave? All that are here would surely say that's true, if fear did not lock their tongues up" (Antigone 547-550). Creon's masculinity was fragile and shaken especially by Antigone's firm stance to reverence the gods' law over his own, which is an immense conflict that is underrated in the play. Creon's pride and rigid ways in the end does not favor him, thus causing death to present itself and teach a lesson that he will never forget. 

Pub #2 "It's All Just an Illusion"

Stella in the play "A Streetcar named Desire", is a transparent, yet conflicting character readers often overlook. Her attachment to her husband, Stanley Kowalski, shadows her ability to be seen as an independent, strong woman like her big sister Blanche. In the play, there is an apparent disconnect between Blanche and Stanley, whose lifestyles do not blend in perfect conjunction with one another which leaves Stella in a bind, trying to get her husband and sister to co-exist under one roof. The decision to choose between Blanche or Stanley puts Stella in a difficult place, to pick between love and family. 
"I couldn't go on believing her story and live with Stanley" (Stella 1232). This statement by Stella is very powerful because it displays her internal conflict and how she realizes that choosing to side with her sister, would result in risking her life, essentially, a stable home, comfort, separating from the love she has for Stanley. When Blanche encounters Stanley for the first time, she see right through him, his dominant demeanor, the way he easily manipulates Stella and asserts his masculinity towards her caring nature. Scene Four is an incredible scene that shows the dynamic between Blanche and Stella, their tolerance for love very different. The morning after the poker night, Blanche confronts Stella for taking Stella back. "When I found out you'd been insane enough to come back in here after what happened...What were you thinking of?" (Blanche 63). "I'm not in anything I want to get out of" (Stella 65). Although in the play Blanche is depicted as the character who lives in her own fantasy, Stella is the one who is blindsided by love. She brushes off the incident that happens with Stanley, drunkenly striking her, excusing his behavior with the "boys will be boys" type of response. Stella is so enamored by Stanley that she believes the way he treats her is normal and that is the way love is supposed to be. Stella realizes that if she decided to believe her sister over Stanley, then there would be no valid reason for her to continue living with him, after facing the reality of who her husband truly is. This sudden awareness leaves Stella in a compromising position, yet she sticks by Stanley afraid of the unknown. 
To connect to an outside source, the movie directed by Tyler Perry, "Madea's Family Reunion" shows two sisters, one who is married to an abusive man and another who is a single mother with kids. Lisa, the one who is married to her abusive husband Carlos stays in the marriage trying to please him, convincing herself that this is her life and it is normal. Her sister Vanessa, knows that Carlos is abusing her sister and tries to open her eyes to show her that she can live without him and be someone without him. In the end of the play, when Blanche is taken away from the house Stella is stricken with grief as she realizes what she has done. She was not willing to listen to Blanche and fully grasp the truth of how Stanley was bad for her because she was afraid of letting go of a love that she was accustomed to not taking notice how her decisions would ultimately affect her sister's mental capacity.

Pub 3: "Martin Luther King said..."

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King Jr. This powerful quote reflects how the oppressed had to fight for their freedom from the oppressor(s) in order to break the chains of confinement that held them in. The term Egalitarianism is defined as "the belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, social, or economic life." In an Utopian society, this system would be perfect in maintaining a stable and equal lifestyle that would benefit everyone, no matter the social status. However, in this flawed world, that is not the case. Since the beginning of time, there has always been an oppressor ruling over the oppressed. From the Independence of America under Britain's rule, to the fight against segregation amongst whites and blacks, the oppressed had to stand up and take what was rightfully theirs. 
A specific group that had to overcome the life of oppression in society were women. Women were notoriously depicted as the "housewife", to uphold the house, take care of the children and perform any duties that were socially acceptable for a woman to have. This social expectation that was burdened upon women lead to social constraints which ultimately often left them emotionally distraught and empty, unable to live for themselves. Kate Chopin, a significant name in Literature, was one of the pioneer authors for women in the 1800's and even now in the postmodernism world to base her written work on sensitive, intelligent women. One of her famed short stories, "The Story of an Hour", told the story of a woman, who in a single hour experienced a freedom that liberated her from the life that she never thought she would have. "There would be no one to live for her during those coming years, she would live for herself." (Chopin 279). This single line in this short story could resonate with every single woman during that time period that was oppressed by society, by men, and even other women. Chopin's works helped start the beginning of a revolution for women who wanted to freely express themselves sexually, verbally, emotionally and so forth. 
Maya Angelou, an author, poet, civil rights activist and much more said it best with one of her most famous poems "Still I Rise". "You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise...Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?...You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise." (Angelou). This poem is a representation of how women were silenced and forced to remain in a bubble, yet chose to overcome all tribulation and rise despite how society would treat them. In conclusion, without the demand for those who seek freedom there will be no noticeable result and all it takes is one person to inflict a change. 

Source:

Angelou, Maya. The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou. New York: Random House, 1994. Print.

Paper #1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q28ZQren6rLx7uPwjzSkgoL-2sBapYzpH-CPDKkhaJE/edit

Egalitarianism

"We hold these truths to be self evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS" - Thomas Jefferson

The definition of Egalitarianism is "the belief in human equality, a social philosophy that promotes (advocates) for the removal of any inequality among people"

4 Main Institutions:
-Education
-Religion
-Family
-Government


Equality in these four institutions are meant to be fair for all in society, however that is not the case. The short stories read this semester revealed unfair treatment based on gender and race with "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "A White Woman of Color" by Julia Alvarez. Reading both stories I found that it Egalitarianism was not such an easy concept to apply to the main institutions because in certain time periods, women and people of color did not have access to basic human rights.

Paper #2

https://docs.google.com/document/d/153KE8jT-Z0bLD1XTWjJO5j1BayCmaEg1feDNJdDGZsw/edit

Perception Lecture

Perception: The act of perceiving the ways in which we understand. 

In this lecture, we learned that there are two forms of Perception:

1. How we see ourselves

2. How others see us

We see ourselves through a psychological perspective meaning that we value ourselves through what we like,  how we feel, what we allow, thoughts that we attract in our mind etc.

It is "an awareness derived from our senses" as said in the lesson. 

How others see us is in "the ways in which we behave in response to our understanding of things"

Others might create a perception according to our behavior, how we react to different aspects of life such as love for example.

In this lesson we see how the main character Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams creates a fantasy for herself in order to block all the misfortunes that have occurred in her life. She perceives herself to be a woman who is adored by all men, by the fancy clothes/jewelry that she wears and how proper she is compared to her brother-in-law Stanley. Stanley on the other hand sees her as a pretentious woman who fakes it to seem as though she is better than everyone else.

In this lesson, I learned that it is important to acknowledge both forms of Perception so that the way we see ourselves does not lead to creating false fantasies and the way others see us keeps us grounded and aware of the reality of our surroundings.

Class Reflection

English Composition 102 by far has been my favorite class this semester. Since the first day of class, I was captivated by Prof. Brady and her loud and energetic personality. I knew from that moment that this would not be any ordinary English class. I enjoyed the fishbowls in class because it allowed the space for everyone to be comfortable and throw in ideas or feed off of one another in an intellectual way. Although I did not talk as much in the fishbowls, I loved to hear other students share and connect their own personal experiences with the short stories and poems that we read.

As a writer, I believe that my writing has improved significantly, to the point where I am able to articulate and develop my ideas clearly as well as provide better analysis in my papers. As a thinker, I have learned in this class to think beyond the surface; to fully read and grasp what an author is trying to convey in their stories and how it can be interpreted in different ways. The short stories that we read this semester were great picks that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and learning about.

What truly resonated with me in this class was how insightful everyone was. The discussions that we had in class were great, and everyone had ideas and personal stories that connected perfectly with the themes. Hearing about Prof. Brady's experiences and the many different places she's been and the many professions she's done inspired me to go out and see the world, take advantage of the time that I have now and wear many hats in my life. I will never forget what she said towards the end of the semester, "Success doesn't come without hard work, if you can read well and write well, you'll do well"... The way she truly cares about her students and the passion that she has for her work I will miss so much. I am so glad that I picked this class!