The Last Part of The Lazarus Project

The final bit of reading of The Lazarus Project started off with a particularly brutal section. It talks about Lazarus witnessing a man being brutally killed during the Pogrom. For a boy to witness this kind of brutality is hard to believe, and it goes a long way to show how horrible the pogrom was.

An interesting part occurs later on, where Rora talks about when he saw "a magic carpet flying across the river. It was a blue and white piece of nylon, but still I could not stop seeing it as a magic carpet." (page 253). It's useful to noticed that previously, Lazarus also imagined himself to be on a magic carpet when he was back home as a boy.

I think the magic carpet really symbolizes these struggling people's wishes to be free of their troubles and to just get away. Lazarus, who was an impoverished Jew, wished for the carpet to fly him away to America and a number of other countries. Rora just imagined a piece of Nylon as a flying carpet, a way to get away that the Chetniks would keep shooting down, showing how one's circumstances in the country keep them from getting away from the troubles.

I also found it interesting when Brik talks about his indecisiveness while in the car with Seryozha. He says that if Mary was in the car she would have been sure to do something, but he ended up doing nothing in the situation.

Later, though, Brik does step up and do something. He ends up pummeling Soryozha, breaking his jaw and perhaps even killing him. He says, "I wish Mary could have seen me in that moment, the lethal combination of wrath and good intentions." (page 264) Brik, in this section, reaches his breaking point. He can no longer keep his passive self in the very hostile country and has reached the point in which he can't handle the terrible things going on in the country anymore.

I did find some comfort that Olga decides to help Isador instead of living in total regret over Lazarus. She writes her mother that "I chose life over death. God will take care of the dead. We have to take care of the living" (page 272). Even though Olga will struggle with Lazarus, it's good to see that she can continue to live and help others in bad situations such as Lazarus's.

Finally, it was eye opening to see that Rora's whole story about Miller and Rambo was all made up. I guess when one comes from a very troubled past, it just makes things feel better when your whole past is made up to put you in a better light.

The Lazarus Project Part 3

This section of reading was already discussed a lot by Mr. Kudera in class, so I found a lot of connections that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. The first part of the story has a very informative list of all the wounds Lazarus received in his death. The assistant chief then calls Jews "creatures of a different world" which is agreed upon by Miller (page 88). This once again reinforces the hate and anti-semitic views of these characters.

The story then shifts to the story of Olga, who, as discussed in class, now seems to be the protagonist of the older story. The story begins to focus on her actions and thoughts and her struggles of losing her brother Lazarus. I thought it was interesting how Lazarus "daydreamed about being a reporter for The Hebrew Voice, while Brik in the present day story is a writer and has written columns. It's just another way to connect the two characters.

The end of the section also had a puzzling scene in which Lazarus comes to the door. After my initial reading, I was unsure of whether this was a dream, flashback, or just Olga going mad. Either way it certainly illustrates the emotional torment she is experiencing.

Back in present times, Brik and Rora are journeying through Eastern Europe. I thought as they were driving and saw "a horse cart with a cage full of rabbits, the man holding the reins slouching like a refugee" that this showed the contrast between their privileged lives and those of many in Eastern Europe (page 100).

I also liked the section in which Brik talks about how in America people often disbelieve a story when they hear it, but those in Ukraine and Bosnia leave all notions of reality behind to follow the story. I think they do this for the same reason that Rambo and Miller careen dangerously around a warzone in an Audi-they are looking for release from reality. They want a way to, even if just for an instant, remove themselves from their tough lives to escape to something better.

I also find it puzzling how Miller can continue to write so venomously about the Jewish and poor community in Chicago as he is exposed more and more to them. Maybe his preconceived notions about them are just too much, but it seems like he would eventually change his views about them after being exposed to the truth so much.

The Lazarus Project Part 2, off to Europe

This section of reading proved to be fairly intriguing, keeping the pages turning as Brik and Rora meander through Europe, learning more about life and searching for answers.

I looked up a few words to help my understanding of the reading. First off, deracination means an isolation of an individual from their native land. A fishmonger is simply a dealer of fish, and finally an aberration is the act deviating from the normal.

This section of reading starts off with Brik and Rora meeting and talking more about their past, present, and future. While the two are meeting and discussing ideas, I think I enjoyed more from Hemon's side tangents than the main plot itself. For example, Hemon writes about Rora: "He stuck out in the morning Andersonville crowd embarking upon their day's work of achieving perfection...I finally comprehended what I had known but had never been able to formulate; he had always been complete. He had finished the work of becoming himself, long before any of us could even imagine such a feat was possible" (page 30).

I liked this quote because it shows what a lot of people struggle with-confidence in themselves. Almost everyone I'd say struggles with their own identity long after reaching adulthood. People like Rora stand out because they're completely fine with where they have come from and who they are.

Another section that stood out to me was when Brik describes the church he attended as a child. He says that "everything in the church bespoke death, the heavy-clothed, airless, blind and deaf and decaying death" (page 39). I think it's very ironic that a revolutionary and life filled religion of Christianity can be so downtrodden in traditions that it becomes the solemn place as Brik describes it.

When the story shifts back to the early 1900's immigrants' mistreatment becomes the clear subject in the story. When the Fitzes and Miller go to investigate Lazarus's apartment and interogate his neighbor mercilessly, one clearly feels sympathy for the immigrants who are severely mistreated. Also, when Olga sees her dead brother sitting there, the situation is extremely distressful. Fitzpatrick even goes as far to say, "Happy to see him? Give him a kiss..." (page 57).

This mistreatment strikes anger in most readers, I'd assume. It's hard to tell where people get so much anger from. Really, though, when put into stressful situations, people tend to want to force the finger of blame somewhere. In Spike Lee's movie, 25th hour, there is a brilliant scene in which Edward Norton stares into a mirror and laces out an expletive laced rant against any kind of minority in New York, venting all of his frustrations in the post 9/11 environment of New York City. No minority was at fault, but Norton feels a sense of justification in himself in making everyone seem like villains.

In the same sense, when problems arise, people have to blame someone as responsible. Whether this responsibility resides with them or not is really beside the point. Blame is given in order for the other party to feel at peace with problems. With punishment dealt out, they feel happier about themselves, and better with the overall situation.

The Bridegroom

The Bridegroom by Ha Jin, like many other stories we've read recently, focuses on human relationships and the overarching power that the politics and culture put on individuals.

The story starts with the narrator talking about his adopted daughter, Beina, whose father was an old friend of his who had passed away. Beina, short, squat, and homely, was not exactly a shining beauty. The narrator was surprised when a handsome man, Baowen, proposed to her and married her soon thereafter.

A funny quote from the story happened when the speaker was describing Braowen as "well educated-a middle school graduate" (page 92). This just shows the cultural difference between the United States and China. There, being a middle school graduate was quite the accomplishment, when in America it's certainly a given.

When it turns that Baowen is a homosexual, the narrator didn't even know how to react. He'd "heard that term before but didn't know what it meant exactly. Seeing many of us puzzled, Chief Miao explained, it's a social disease, like gambling, prostitution, or syphilis" (page 95). This furthered on what we talked about in class today. China's censorship of things for their citizens really extended to cover a lot. They can't research many topics thoroughly, and are so censored that they don't even properly know what homosexuality is, thinking of it as a disease.

This censorship includes elements of brainwashing. Chief Miao even tells the speaker that "homosexuality originated in Western capitalism and bourgeois lifestyle", which of course has no substance or concrete backing (page 96).

They even go as far as trying to treat the homosexuality in a mental care facility. They make Baowen undergo electric shock treatment which obviously isn't going to do anything towards his sexual preferences. One of the doctors finally admits to the speaker that homosexuality is indeed not a disease, but rather a preference. The speaker is, of course, shocked by this new found knowledge.

I did find it interesting that Beina really didn't mind having a gay husband. She viewed the entire relationship as very platonic, seeing advantages for both sides in getting married without including a physical relationship.

After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town

Well after realizing I initially blogged on the wrong story today, here goes my second blog in one day, woohoo!

So this blog is about the story, After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town, by Ha Jin. The story follows suit to many of our recent readings, talking about relationships between people and the clashing of cultures. This story does a particularly humorous job of intersecting American and Chinese cultures that ends up creating a very entertaining story.

One of the first things I noticed was how the boss, an American man, took to being lazy when things became successful. "At first Mr. Shapiro worked hard, often staying around until we closed at ten-thirty. But as the business was flourishing, he hung back more and stayed in his office for hours on end, reading newspapers and sometimes chewing on a skinny sausage wrapped in cellophane" (page 190). This, to me, showed the stereotypical American dream. Make money, get rich, and be lazy. This is so against the stereotypical Chinese culture of keeping your nose to the grindstone to get success.

Particularly funny to me was how they hosted a wedding banquet at the restaurant. A couple had decided to marry, and "wanted something exotic for their wedding dinner, so he picked Cowboy Chicken" (page 199). The thought of someone having an "exotic" dinner at someplace like a Kentucky Fried Chicken was very funny for me, and certainly showed differences in culture.

Another more serious matter involved the relationships between men and women. In America, romance and relationships can be wild and sporadic, while in Chinese culture they seem much more orderly. This is certainly shown by the boss when he "grasped her wrist and called her "Honey" (page 206). To the Chinese folks, this seemed like a grand offense worthy of the police, but in America it would be more of just a creepy situation.

The whole issue of wastefulness is also tackled in the story. Americans are shown in the story, and I would say it's definitely true, to bed incredibly wasteful. When they could be giving the leftover chicken away, Peter was taking it out and burning it in the dirt. They make claims later that it will eventually lead to less waste, but that is all just ridiculousness.

Finally, I thought the last part was particularly funny. When the boss took the workers' note as them threatening to bomb the fast food joint, it exemplified what the story was all about: 2 different cultures having troubles getting along and having trouble understanding each other.

Orbiting

This blog's all about the story, Orbiting, by Bharah Mukherjee. After reading another short story by her last week, I was interested to see how this story would relate, if at all, to the previous story. Both stories turned out to be strong commentaries on relationships and different cultures.

I looked up a few vocabulary words during my reading to get a better understanding of the story. First off, lasciviously means inclined to lustfulness. Next, poignant means strongly distressing to the feelings. Finally, holism can be defined as the theory that whole entities, as fundamental components of reality, have an existence other than as the mere sum of their parts.

The story starts with the narrator, Renata, preparing for Thanksgiving dinner with her family. She immediately alludes to a past relationship with Vic, so one can surmise that relationships are going to be a strong focus in the story. Renata's parents are also quickly described to start off the story.

One quote I liked was when Renata speaks that "Mom has the simple, immigrant faith that children should do better than their parents, and her definition of better is comfortingly rigid" (page 58). I think this can be related to by many families. The parents work hard to bring their family into the prosperous land of America. Now that they're in the land of the American dream, the parents really see no reason why their children can't surpass them in terms of monetary value and success.

I also liked the quote, "Grumbling and scolding are how we deMarcos express love" (page 58). I can say that this often holds true in my family. My father especially is quick to point out the mistakes that I tend to make. Ultimately, though, this is done to help me out in the future.

A lot of the commentary by Renata is about her thoughts on being with Vic. She often refers to things with him in the present tense, then switches to the past tense in realization that she is no longer with him. For example, she says that "he isn't good with directions that come in four languages. At least he wasn't" (page 61). Anyone who's been in a long relationship can certainly understand these emotions. After being attached to one person for a long period of time, your thoughts become often centered around them. When they leave suddenly, it's hard not to include them in your thought processes.

I like the perspective on America Ro gives the story. Ro describes America as a more chaotic place than many would describe it, talking of sudden raids, papers, detention centers, etc. While Renata comes from a fairly stable background, Ro comes from a much rougher past, including scars received from jailtime in Afghanistan during torture.

I thought the interactions between Renata's father and Ro were particularly humorous. A middle eastern man conversing and trying to relate with a very politically conservative man generally calls out for humor. My grandfather was the stereotypical republican, so imagining him talking to Ro was how I envisioned the father in the story. Two completely different mindsets on politics and two completely different kinds of backgrounds makes for some awkward conversations.

Finally, I do think it's rather sad how people, including myself, often judge people too quickly when they're not the norm. Renata talks of Ro: "He's sophisticated, he could make monkeys out of us all, but they think he's a retard" (page 72). I think in general people need to open up their minds to accept people from all kinds of cultures and see what they can learn from different kinds of people.

A Wife's Story

Well it's been a while since I blogged. We'll see how spring break affects my writing skills. I'm writing now about the short story, "A Wife's Story," by Bharati Mukherjee.

First off, I'll go ahead and list a few words that I looked to help clarify some things in the story. The first word, Magyar, is a word for a member of an ethnic group coming from Hungary. Next, zamindar is a landlord required to pay a land tax to the government. Finally, flautist it turns out, is just another word for flutist.

So, A Wife's Story is in fact a story about a wife. The wife, a lady from India, starts off her story by commenting how she wishes to write David Mamet. The speaker and a fried of hers, Imre, are watching the play Glengarry Glen Ross, and she becomes infuriated at the crass nature Mamet gives to minorities. The short story, which is all about the clashing and blending of different cultures, shows that the minorities do in fact have feelings and thoughts separate from the general American stereotype. I really liked when the speaker says "I don't hate Mamet. It's the tyranny of the American dream that scares me. First, you don't exist. Then you're invisible. Then you're funny. Then you're disgusting" (page 26).

This quote really stood out to me as important. Generally, it is fairly true of how Americans more or less treat minorities. The author does a good job of summing up this harsh treatment of minorities in one succinct statement there.

Imre, though, tells her she needs to "let go a bit" on page 28. Perhaps he has a point, since there are many successful people who are minorities in America today. Everyone gets made fun of to some extent, so maybe people need to just simmer down and not take insults and generalizations personally.

The rest of the story really showed the stark contrast between different cultures. Examples of the cultural shift between America and other countries are abundant, including Charity. "Here, she's a model with high ambitions. In India, she'd be a flat chested old maid" (page 30).

I also found it humorous when the speaker's husband visits her in America and explores the various eateries and entrees that America has for him to satisfy his tastes. Everything comes off as rather bland, though, so he carries around a bottle of red peppers.

The speaker also becomes much more guilty feeling when he comes to town. In America she gets the sense of free love being given and received, while in India things seem much more formal. When her husband comes to visit, she takes on a bit of the formalness again and begins to feel more guilt concerning her infidelity.

The Stones of Summer

So, in class today we watched a documentary about an avid reader who is searching for the author of his favorite book entitled The Stones of Summer, who disappeared after writing this one novel. The novel is essentially unheard of, so Mark, the narrator, is faced with the problem of having no good way to locate the author. Also, since the book was written in 1972 and only one review was written about it, this complicates things further.

Since Mark feels so connected to the story, he feels obligated to find the author and talk to him about the wonderful novel he wrote. The novel gives him a sense of nostalgia, bringing him back to the days of his youth and how books changed who he was as a person. As a younger man, Mark admits to not knowing much about who he was, but instead remembers more the books he read. I feel like this helps show how books thoroughly shaped who he has become as an adult.

I also really liked how he mentioned that nowadays people spend so much more time on the computer and the internet and less time reading books. I think this speaks volumes on the lack of imagination that has become more and more prevalent in today's society. As a child, Mark describes how he would sit in the paperback bookstore for long periods at a time, drinking in all the stories and letting his imagination run wild. In today's society, however, video games and television seem to be the normal activities of any kid.

Mark uses reading even in his present life to cope with reality. He seems to have a stressful job that takes up a lot of his time. He counters this stress with delving into a good story and releasing all of his anxieties he faces in his every day life. Some people crack open a beer and mindlessly watch television, but Mark does something that relaxes him and works his brain at the same time.

So the documentary segment for the Wednesday class ends with Mark still searching for the author of The Stones of Summer. I just wonder what Mark will do if and when he meets this author. Will he be so surprised at actually finding him that he won't know what to say? Or will he be prepared for the moment and have a great conversation with the man? Either way, it should make for a very interesting situation to see what kind of life lessons and emotional impact Mark can draw from the author of this mysterious book.

Final Reading of The Same River Twice

In this final section of Chris Offutt's memoir, Chris comes to terms of where his wanderings across America have led him, and he also faces the reality of having a child.

First off, I'll throw in a few words I looked up to help me understand the reading. Scow is defined as any of various vessels having a flat-bottomed rectangular hull with sloping ends, built in various sizes with or without means of propulsion, as barges, punts, rowboats, or sailboats. Transient was another word, and it means not lasting, or transitory. Finally, lulling means to soothe or quiet.

Offutt at the beginning of this section meanders down to Florida, where he gets a job at a park in the everglades. The park, as described by Offutt, was less than stellar to be sure. He describes as being bitten by mosquitoes an average of "one hundred and fifty bites per day. [He] soon developed something of an immunity" (page 158).

Offutt describes the work at the everglades to be fairly dehumanizing. He says that "we were de-evolved humans who'd chosen proximity to the foundations of our existence...the glades were America's version of the French Foreign Legion, and the meager pay kept us all locked in harness" (page 160). The simple and harsh nature of living at The Flamingo brings Offutt a lot closer to man's primitive state of life. The food is bad, the work is rough, but Offutt pulls off a living none the less.

Soon a hurricane comes to hit Florida. As the hurricane approaches, Offutt spends some time pondering what his journeys have meant to him. Offutt writes that "years ago, I'd left Kentucky and set into motion a pattern of repetitive exile that had ended by droppping me into a rapidly sinking swamp.I had entered the world to become a man and wound up truly caring about very little. Most of my life had been a sequence of halfhearted attempts at self destruction...Now I faced a worthy death" (page 169). This quote stood out to me as being pretty important. Throughout all of Offut's travels, he realized that he ultimately had grown to care less and less about most things in life. Offutt, through a path of various odd jobs, had ended up in the foul existence of the swamp, and thought he had reached the bottom. He figures since he's dropped this low, he might as well experience a worthy death by a mighty hurricane.

Also, speaking of the mighty hurricane, I thought Offutt did a great job describing how he saw the hurricane through his eyes. He writes that "the wind slowed as Jacob's tentacle followed its spiral path" (page 171). I just liked how the word tentacle was incorporated in describing the hurricane.

Chris, now unsure of what to do next in life, quits his job. After a few months he meets his future wife, Rita. He considers following suit to his old pattern of life and leaving, but she convinces him otherwise. After moving into a house by the river, Offutt writes, "I had my goddess. I had my temple. The prairie spread in every direction" (page 177). Offutt finally finds something to keep him in one place-a companion. Life is hard to go through alone, with nobody there to be able to share all your feelings with. This may be one underlyinig reason why Offutt was so frustrated with his traveling life; he had nobody to share his experiences with. That's why he wrote everything in his journal, he felt a need to express himself somehow.

The Same River Twice Part Dos

Offutt begins this section of reading discussing his uncertainty of his wife's pregnancy. He really wants the child to be healthy and have a good upbringing, and he's worried how he potentially will have to take care of the child at home. This contrasts greatly with his thoughts and actions in his youth, where he would move with seemingly not a care in the world. I think as people age and face more responsibility, uncertainty and worry happens more naturally, it just comes down to how you deal with every situation.

After talking about his wife for a few pages, I love how Offutt opens up the stories of his youth again. He says, "The guts of America unfolded in every direction as I traveled down the interstate bloodstream, dodging the white corpuscles of perverts, cops, and outlaws" (page 59). This goes along with Offutt's many other great descriptions that I've already noticed in the book. He makes comparisons to two things that you normally would not associate with, giving the writing a much more original feel.

Another quote I liked was when he described his father's greatest fear as "duplicating Caesar's deathbed epiphany, and each of us was a potential Brutus, Judas, or Delilah" (p. 60). I liked this quote because Offutt could have simply just said his father was dreadfully suspicious of his family, but instead he used both secular historical as well as Biblical examples to really put true feeling into what his father was dealing with.

This whole reading really focused on Offutt gaining new experiences that he had never experienced before. There was some good insightful thoughts, and some very humorous situations. I thought it was very funny when he was about to jump out of the plane and he writes that "ten million years of genetic conditioning screamed in outrage and protest" (page 64). Just the next page, though, his friend Bill has killed himself by drinking and torching himself with kerosene, showing the fragility of the human condition.

Even in his life with his wife, Offutt experiences new things. For instance, him changing a diaper was worse for him than seeing heroin addicts or even "the chilling aftermath of a gunshot wound" (page 75). Really, we're always experiencing new things, no matter how old we get. The younger you are, the more new things you're generally going to experience, but that doesn't mean that this experiencing of new things will stop when you get old. There's always more to learn.

I thought it was interesting when Offutt describes Al talking of judgement and damnation then having Winner talk of death and destruction as well. He writes that, "maybe he and Winner were both correct-the world was doomed to extinction" (page 84). I think this part showed that when people are faced with uncertainties, such as the future, they become desperate and search in vain for answers or at least try to try to prepare themselves for the uncertainties that are to come.

The Same River Twice Part One

After reading the first paragraph of Chris Offutt's memoir, I knew I'd enjoy reading it. I love the outdoors and nature, and I can see much of Offutt's writings would involve his experience with the wilderness. I especially enjoyed the sentence, "Cloud shadows are great fish moving swiftly overhead" (page 9). This evoked a sense of laying down in an open field looking up in the sky, giving me a very relaxed feeling.

I did look up a few words to get a greater meaning from the book. Amok literally translates to a psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder, which is something I never really knew. Gestating means to carry in the womb. Finally, tribulation refers to a severe time of suffering.

The story starts off with a prologue of Offutt talking about the timelessness and power of nature. He discusses how nature will be here after we're gone just as it has been here before humankind existed. I liked the sentence, "The ashes of Alexander's library reveal the fragility of books" (page 10).

Throughout the reading, I noticed many places where Offutt describes things in very clever and humorous ways. One example was when he described his wife and him making love trying for a baby as "I felt like Zeus field testing his swan suit before the seduction of Leda. Gamete met zygote. DNA merged into the corkscrew that resembled the Milky Way's spiral, Herme's Staff. the swift helix of infant birth" (page 16). Just the word choice here is fantastic, along with his tapping into knowledge that one wouldn't generally expect from a redneck out of Kentucky.

When describing his hometown, I liked it when he says "my hometown is a zip code with a creek." I can relate to this as my dad grew up in a town that consisted of a volunteer fire department, two churches, a double wide post office, and farmland as far as the eye can see. I also like the immediate contrast the Offutt experiences when he throws himself into the city after he has never even crossed the county line.

He does, however, find some similarities between the two. He says that "manhattan was filthy and loud but similar to the hills" packed with illiterate men, unattainable women, and threat of injury." Offutt is completely out of place in the city, and struggles to adapt. I thought it was quite funny when he figured out that the ladies in the laundromat were speaking in Spanish, which he had taken for some strange dialect. The situation with the hermaphrodite, although somewhat disturbing, was also a pretty funny story for the redneck getting acclimated to the city.

As far as his relationship with Jahi goes, I thought one line in particular was insightful. He says that "no doubt she was a tad nutty, but I hadn't met anyone in the city who wasn't." I think this goes along with the saying, we're all weird, it just depends on who chooses to show it the most. You can either choose to bottle up all of your emotions and feelings, or lay them out in the open and not worry about what others are going to think of you.

Glengarry Glen Ross Part 2

The play really flew by reading, so I decided to go ahead and blog on the end of the play. This section starts off quite humorously with an identity switch from Levene to help out Roma. Roma sees a client coming in the office and tells Levene, "You're a client. I just sold you five waterfront Glengarry Farms. I rub my head, throw me the cue Kenilworth" (page 78). I thought this really sums up a lot of what is used in the sales world: deception. Salesmen are always trying to wheel and deal their way to the sale, no matter what.

Roma illustrates this mentality extremely well over the next few pages. He tells Lingk that "the man next to [him], he bought his lot at forty-two," trying to show Lingk that in comparison Lingk was getting a very fair price (page 83). Roma misdirects the conversation whenever Lingk tries to back out of the sale, and Roma even tries to cheat Lingk by telling him that the three days will not be up by the time they meet again to discuss the sale.

Roma even appeals at the personal level to Lingk, telling him, "This is me...This is Ricky, Jim. Jim, anything you want, you want it, you have it. You understand? This is me" (page 91). Once again, this shows how salesmen will try to get at your personal level and appear friendly just to make a sale. Roma later tries to persuade Lingk to just come out and get a drink, where he says no business will be talked about. By getting at the personal level, Roma hopes to get in Lingk's good graces and build up a level of trust.

Roma's plan, though, falls flat on its face when Williamson tells Lingk that the check was cashed the day before. At first it seems like Williamson is the only one telling the truth, we learn soon that he also is lying to help further his personal gains. I think Williamson's deceit comes as a surprise and serves as a lesson that even the most by the book people in the business world will at some point make a move that delves in the gray area of right and wrong.

After Levene seems like the veteran of wheeling and dealing, he gets duped by Williamson, who was supposedly the goody goody in the office. This goes to show that in the cutthroat world of sales, nobody should ever really be trusted because every guy is there to get his and usually doesn't care how he gets it.

Glengarry Glen Ross

The first section of Glengarry Glen Ross was pretty interesting to me. I got a lot out of the different characters and their interactions with each other and the company.

I looked up a few words in the story to help further meaning. I looked up polack, which is a demeaning term for people of Polish descent. I also looked up marshaling, which means to arrange in a certain order. Finally, I also looked up the phrase au lait, which was during Roma's speech on the train, which turns out to mean prepared or served with milk.

The play starts off with two businessmen, Levene and Williamson, eating at a Chinese restaurant. Levene is talking with Williamson about he recently can't close a deal, but he'll get back to his old shape in no time. Levene is a veteran of the business world, while Williamson seems a little newer to the game. I liked the comments Levene made on Williamson marshaling leads. He says, "Fuck marshaling the leads. What the fuck talk is that? Where did you learn that? In School?...Our job is to sell" (page 19).

I think a lot of this can be applied in college students' lives. We learn the proper way to do business and conduct ourselves at school. When we get out in the business world, though, are we going to follow suit by doing things the proper way or are we going to take the shortcuts that lead to the quickest success personally? In a capitalist society, I'd say oftentimes we'll go for the shortcut route.

Williamson takes this shortcut route by taking Levene's cut on a couple of sales that are given to him by Williamson. As mentioned earlier, this isn't necessarily the most ethical thing to do, but it logically makes sense for the two men in order for them to maximize their personal earnings.

The next scene involves Moss and Aaronow talking about their business problems. They're discussing how their company takes way too much of a cut out of their commissions. They discuss a friend, Jerry Graff, who is doing business on his own. Moss says, "He's clean, he's doing business for himself...Why take ten percent?...What are we giving ninety per...for nothing" (page 33). I think people often times get stuck in a rut in their job and look at how the grass is always greener on the other side, so to speak. This can at times be true, but it can also lead to brash actions and risk taking built on frustration in a current situation. This is what happens to moss and Aaronow. They start thinking about how their job is terrible compared to others, and they try to beat the system by taking the leads and selling them off.

Next, the reader meets Roma, a man determined to get his. Roma is all about gaining. He doesn't really care about excuses, if he sees something out there that he wants, his main objective is to go out there and get it. He seems like a cynical man, who's been through a lot. He says that life throws out problems, as well as throwing out some blessings. The good and the bad happen, and you just have to deal with it and do what's most for your own gain.

Emergency and Home

The first story I read was Emergency by Denis Johnson. To be honest, I was pretty confused throughout a lot of the story. There were many allusions that I didn't fully understand. Georgie, especially intrigued me. He makes some insightful comments like, "There's so much goop inside of us, and it all wants to get out" (page 274). It's hard to tell, though, if Georgie is just talking about the blood he sees or some deeper symbolic meaning.

Blindness seemed to be a big issue in the story. Georgie seems like he is somewhat blind, like when he tells the man with the knife in his eye that he "can't see what [he's] saying" (page 276). Georgie, although he seemed below par mentally at times, surprises the reader with his ability to help others. For example, when he came out of the operating room with the knife that was in the man's eyes, everyone seemed to be thoroughly surprised as "the talk just dropped off a cliff" (page 278).

One thing that I think furthered the confusion in the story was the characters' usage of drugs. Everything in the story had a kinda of surreal quality in my opinion. From Georgie's actions in the hospital to the trip out to the country, it was hard to get a sense of what was tangibly going on in the story.

I found I could connect much better to the next story, Home, by Jayne Anne Phillips. I thought this story really focused on the themes of dealing with the past, struggles, and strained relationships.

The story starts off describing the speaker as a 23 year old woman who has just moved back into her mother's home. The mom seems detached from the world, simply watching television at night and now wanting to get out. The speaker then looks at her mom's old photos and sees a different woman. Her mom was outside, at sorority parties. I liked how she says "the photographer had painted her lashes too lushly" (page 411), showing that her mother is now a completely different person.

The speaker then talks about her father and their estranged relationship. After being married for twenty years, her mom divorced him. The dream she has about her father is particularly disturbing. In the dream, the father caresses her thigh and ends up having an erection. This alludes to possible abuse in the past.

The speaker also has trouble dealing with her past lovers. Jason, who seems like her high school sweetheart and first love, had a mental breakdown after his brother died. The speaker still doesn't seem completely over him, still reminiscing about him. Daniel, also seems like an interesting character. Although he has another lover now, the speaker pleads with him to come visit, and they eventually have sex in the house.

The story ends with the mother coming back from church telling the speaker that she heard the two having relations in the bedroom. The mom has a hard time dealing with her daughter growing up and becoming a woman who makes her own decisions. The daughter, likewise, has trouble dealing with her mother who now lives a fairly mundane life in her own bubble. Both characters have struggles- the mom with her former husband and the daughter with her past loves. The story really focused on how everyone struggles with relationships and each other and how messy life can be.

Last Section of Lolita

The last section of Lolita was a lot different from the other sections. First off, Lolita wasn't tangibly in the story at all, only her memory is present in Humbert's mind. Also, this section is very morbid and foreboding, which only makes sense after a man loses his love.

I looked up a few words for this section that helped my reading. The word putrefaction means state of decay. Palliative means something that relieves without curing. Finally, automaton means mechanical-like or robotic.

This section of reading started off with Humbert thinking back over his relationship with Lolita. His revelations aren't exactly pleasant for him. He comes to realize that "I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not a pal, not even a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn" (page 283). He comes to realize that he mistreated her and was completely unfair to her. He does, however, still mention that he loved her on the bottom of page 284. He mentions being a monster, brutal, and despicable, but all in all he still loves her.

The reader gets the sense that Humbert is about to do something murderous early on in the book. From the beginning, he admits to being a murderer, and the reader knows about his ownership of a gun. The reader knows for sure it's going to happen soon when Humbert describes a planned out murder, then says, "I did better" (page 288).

Humbert soon after returns to the town where he originally met Lolita. He meets with Clare's Uncle and then takes pleasure in calling him a bad dentist to spite him. It seems like a silly way out frustrations, but one must remember Humbert was in quite the state of mind. The passage right after the dentist's visit shows Humbert is fully prepared to take his revenge on Clare Quilty. He describes preparing the gun. "Push the magazine into the butt. Press home until you hear or feel the magazine catch engage. Delightfully snug. Capacity: eight cartridges. Full Blued. Aching to be discharged" (page 292). I liked the way the phrase aching to be discharged is used. It really shows the pain and bitterness Humbert has been experiencing throughout the past few years, and how he's been ready to take out his anger.

On a sidenote, I feel like Humbert's revenge is more for himself than for the noble act of love. Obviously from an objective point of view the reader can see that Lolita is in a better place not than in Humbert's arms, but Humbert I think looks at Lolita's taking almost as the stealing of a prized possession he loves. Humbert always describes loving Lolita, but never wants to do what is in her best interest. He only does things for his own personal gain.

Either way, Humbert was sure to get his revenge. The book's climax ensues as Humbert confronts Clare in his own home. The whole situation was somewhat comical, with Clare being a sick old man whose mind has been ruined by drugs and Humbert stumbling around drunk. The two's conversations go nowhere for a while considering the two mens' states of mind. Finally, Humbert gets it across to Clare that he is going to kill him for kidnapping Lolita. Clare takes the whole situation rather lightly, then fighing ensues. I thought it was interesting how Humbert describes how the fighting "lacked the ox-stuffing fisticuffs, the flying furniture" (page 299). He describes the two men as "two large dummies...one of whom was utterly disorganized by a drug while the other was handicapped by a heart condition and too much gin." Whenever we think of fights in dramatic literature or movies, we normally think of a rousing battle between good and evil in grand style. Nabokov turns this on its head by showing the realistic struggle between two aging men who have both had better years behind them.

Humbert, though, finally kills Clare and is not afraid to admit it to the guests that arrive, although they assume he is just joking around. He finishes his narrative driving crazily through the streets, figuring that after he's broken one law, traffic laws don't really need to be followed either.

I liked the quote Humbert says on page 308, in which he says, "This is my story. I have reread it. It has bits of marrow sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies." I take this as Humbert telling the reader that he's told his life story-all of it; the good, the bad and the ugly. He hasn't glossed over the happenings in his life, he tells the reader that he's presented them as he's seen them.

I thought Nabokov's note at the end had a few interesting remarks. Nabokov had already written about Russia and Europe, so with Lolita he wanted to invent America. He didn't want to be anti-American, as some readers thought, but he wanted to show the good and the bad of America, its flaws and its qualities. Nabokov also mentions burning the draft of Lolita which lets the reader know that he truly struggled in writing the controversial story.

Humbert and Lolita hit the road again

After getting Lolita settled into a somewhat stable home life, Humbert almost immediately begins to feel discomfort about the situation. He is always wary of what the neighbors are thinking about his relationship with Lolita. He says, "I often felt we lived in a lighted house of glass and that any moment some thin-lipped parchment face would peer through...to obtain a free glimpse of things that the most jaded voyeur would have paid a small fortune to watch" (page 180). This sets the mood that Humbert keeps for his entire stay at the house, that of paranoia.

Humbert also becomes perturbed by what Lolita is learning from others. For instance, their neighbor Gaston more than likely told her how to get her allowance raised. Humbert is not prepared to deal with Lolita learning more and more from others, including her being more vocal in her objections of Humbert's behavior.

After describing this, Humbert goes on to talk about a conversation he has with the headmistress at the school. Nabokov once again makes it a sure point to satirize what some people find important in education these days. The headmistress wishes for Lolita to become more ladylike and refined, but mentions minimally anything on actual studies.

I thought one interesting point in the reading came when Lolita actually brought up the action of pedophilia. She asks Humbert if he can remember "the hotel where you raped me?" (page 202). This seemed important because it was the first time she actually talks of the action of rape, showing perhaps more disdain for Humbert than previously. She slowly becomes more rebellious, and mentioning this is another sign of that.

Another interesting development arises when Humbert realizes that Lolita is becoming too old for him. "The fog of all lust had been swept away leaving nothing but this dreadful lucidity. Oh, she had changed! Her complexion was now that of any vulgar untidy highschool girl who applies shared cosmetics with grubby fingers..." (page 204). This, along with Humbert mentioning a gun he now owns on page 216, foreshadow perhaps violence in the future. Humbert already admits to being a killer, so is it possible that he would kill Lolita to preserve her in her nymphet state? I guess time will tell the story there.

Humbert as an unreliable narrator comes up again in this section of reading. He describes himself as having an "incomplete and unorthodox memory" on page 217, making the reader only have to guess on what actually happened. On page 227, Humbert describes a supposed detective following him. He talks about the detective swapping cars out a lot, following in different cars. This makes me wonder if there is an actual detective, or if Humbert in his stressed out state, is just seeing things.

Lolita goes on the road

Lolita and Humbert hit the road for this next section of reading, traveling all across the United States for their travels. I looked up a good many words in this section of reading, but I'll just show the first three that I looked up. The word propensity means natural inclination or tendency. Genteel means suited to polite society. Finally, congenial means agreeable or suitable.

This section of reading starts with Humbert and Lolita embarking on a journey across America. They usually stay at cheap motels and cabins to save money and remain inconspicuous. Throughout their travels, Humbert begins to notice that Lolita was, well, acting her age. "Lolita, when she chose, could be a most exasperating brat. I was not really quite prepared for her fits of disorganized boredom, intense and vehement griping, her sprawling, droopy, dopey-eyed style..." (page 148). This annoyance by Humbert seemed interesting to me. Humbert seems almost surprised by her childish ways. I guess he wants her to act like an adult because she is his romantic interest, but the fact remains that she is only twelve years old.

She becomes annoyed with Humbert, but Humbert explains that she's stuck with him. He says, "So I go to jail. Okay. I go to jail. But what happens to you, my orphan?...You become the ward of the Department of Public Welfare" (page 150). For Lolita, this must seem like a bleak situation. At only twelve years old, she has to cope with the fact that she is forced to remain with Humbert as long as Humbert feels like keeping her.

Humbert then spends a while talking about the places they travel. Perhaps he wants to describe the extensive journey they go on, or perhaps he just enjoys reminiscing on the travels. While describing the travels, Humbert once again appeals to the reader to humanize himself. He says, "I itemize these sunny nothings mainly to prove to my judges that I did everything in my power to give my Lolita a really good time" (page 162).

I thought one disturbing when Humbert described how he refused to give Lolita her coffee until she performed her "morning duty" which I can only assume has sexual connotations. This would have to mean that sex became a ritual daily for Humbert and Lolita, and I can only imagine that the more it happened, the more dehumanized Lolita became. Also, Humbert once again mentions perhaps the source of his pedophilia, mentioning his unfulfilled romance with Annabell at the seaside. He tries to imitate the seaside romance with Lolita, as well.

It seems that Humbert's obsession for nymphets is not going to stop at Lolita, either. Perhaps most disturbing was Humbert's thoughts on getting Lolita pregnant and having her birth a daughter that Humbert could also have relations with. Humbert's plans become more and more twisted as the book goes along. At first, he seems shy with Lolita, then he gets to her through her mother. And now, finally, he thinks about using her to get to another young girl in the future. The more you look into Humbert's mind, the more you realize how deeply disturbed he is and how obsessed he is for nymphets.

Lolita Part 2

After the initial shock of the first reading in Lolita, I felt I could read this section of the novel more deeply without being disturbed or surprised by the content. I still found it very interesting to be inside Humbert's mind, reading his every emotion. For example, I found it interesting that he was proud of himself after pleasuring himself by wrestling with Lolita in his lap. He says, "I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the money of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor" (page 62). I think it's pretty significant that Humbert does not wish to harm the child. Humbert later says that he "intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child" (page 63). Nabokov is once again trying to humanize Humbert, making him more as a sympathetic human being who really doesn't wish any harm on the girl.

Humbert even describes himself as having "fallen in love with Lolita forever" (page 65). By saying this, Humbert is trying to persuade the audience that Lolita is not some lustful desire, but something much more than that. He does, however, contradict his argument by saying that in a couple years she will no longer be Lolita, but instead a young woman. In Humbert's eyes, this seems perfectly rational, but the jury of the audience will have a hard time justifying that thought.

Humbert continues his amoral quest for Lolita by marrying Charlotte, Lolita's mother. Humbert cannot do much to defend himself for this action, besides the fact that he has become obsessed with Lolita.

As the reader delves more and more into Humbert's mind, it's easy to tell both how much he loves Lolita, and how crazed he is to have her for himself. He premeditates that "the natural solution was to destroy Mrs. Humbert" (page 84). He even has the entire murder planned out while Charlotte is swimming, but Humbert cannot bring himself to do it. Humbert does seem a tad bit more human when he confesses that he couldn't kill her because he would morally be haunted by the murder.

I thought Humbert makes a pressing cry for help on page 88 when he says, "We are not sex fiends! We do not rape as good soldiers do. We are unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults" (page 88). Humbert lets the reader know that he is in a rational state of mind, although he has attended a mental hospital in the past. His thoughts do make rational sense; he wants something, and will do what is necessary to get what he wants. On a moral level, though, Humbert seems in the wrong.

Finally, with Charlotte now out of the picture with a fateful accident, Humbert now seems free to pursue Lolita as he wishes. With the conflict of the mother now out of the way, I'm looking for the relationship between Humbert and Lolita to become more central and to become more complicated.

Lolita Part 1

Whoa. That's the best way I can describe reading the first 62 pages of Nabokov's book, Lolita. The book has to this point left me with an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. I do think it's interesting to see inside the mind of a man who's struggling with pedophilia, but reading Humbert think sensually about young girls still leaves me an extreme sense of being uncomfortable.

First off, I'll just run through a few of the words that I looked up while reading. Seraph means a member of the highest order of angels. This helped me begin to understand Humbert at the beginning of the novel. The next word I found was nymphet, which means a sexually attractive young girl. Finally, the last word I looked up was prophylactic, which means preventive or protective.

Before reading the book, I knew the premise included a man being enamored by a young girl, Lolita. Since I knew this, the first line of the story pretty much set the stage for what I was to expect in the rest of the novel. Nabokov chooses to start the story with this sentence: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul" (page 3). From the beginning of the story, I now knew this would be a no holds barred look at the mind of a pedophile.

Humbert then goes into how he started off delving into his attraction of younger girls, including his initial love with a girl named Annabel who he tried to make love with but ultimately failed. He then goes on to talk about various prostitutes he came to know, and how he only found the nymphets, or the girls under 14 years old, to be attractive. I did find it interesting that Humbert speaks to the audience in a persuasive manner, trying to get them to side with him. Anywhere he can, he tries to gain sympathy from the readers. For example, he wants himself to be viewed as the opposite of a stereotypical pedophile by describing himself as "an exceptionally handsome man; slow moving, tall, with soft dark hair" (page 25). He then goes on to mention he could get any adult woman he wanted, showing that his going after girls was not some desperate attempt for love, but it's just the way he is.

Finally, Humbert begins to speak about his feelings for Lolita, who lives in the same boarding house as Humbert does. He does know that what he's doing is viewed by many others as wrong, because he does his best to hide his lustful desires from anyone else. He patiently waits for the best moment to pursue Lolita, when nobody else is around. This is where things get more strange.

Humbert is teasing Lolita with an apple, and begins to playfully wrestle with her in his lap. Nabokov's distinct imagery here is both beautiful from Humbert's perspective and at the same time respulsive I'm sure to most readers. The lustful feelings of Humbert come to full tilt, with imagery being used such as, "I crushed out against her left butock the last throb of the longest ecstasy man or monster had ever known" (page 61). These paragraphs of sensual pleasure that Humbert describes really tap into the innermost feelings of his soul. He is crying out to the "jury" that his love is real and that he is not some crazed man sexually abusing kids just for kicks. After reading, though, you are still left with an unexplained feeling of shame for what you just read.

America and In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

The first poem I read was America, by Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg states his clear opinion in the first line of the poem, saying,"America I've given you all and now I'm nothing" (page 39). He doesn't really beat around the bush or leave any mystery to what his exact feelings are in this poem. The poem expresses loud and clear Ginsberg's disdain for the United States of America.

Ginsberg makes constant references that allude to America thinking of itself as a perfect nation with no flaws. He says America made him want to be a "saint" (page 39). He also talks how America feels like it is superior to other nations in the world, when Ginsberg is still asking when America will be angelic. He also makes allusions to the millions of underprivileged souls out in the world who America is more or less ignoring. Ginsberg makes it clear that America is a flawed place, although it does its best to try to market itself as a perfect nation.

Ginsberg makes another interesting point when he says, "I won't say the Lord's Prayer" (page 40). Although the government officially observes a separation of church and state, the lines between the two become blurry when real life sets in. In America, today, it seems like every major politician of importance supports the Christian faith in some way. Some may really believe in the religion, but others use it simply for political gain. Ginsberg here refuses to just say the Lord's Prayer to sound like a "good, patriotic American."

Ginsberg ends the poem by speaking as the stereotypical American public. He blames all problems on "them Russians" and "them Chinamen" (page 42). The saying of Chinamen alone represents the ignorance employed by many Americans when it comes to other cultures. But Ginsberg goes on, talking about Indians and Communists as well. By showing America's attitude like this in a no hold bars way, Ginsberg really gets his point across well.

Just as I was getting confident after understanding America fairly well, I read the next poem, In the Baggage Room at Greyhound, and ended up fairly confused after my initial reading. Ginsberg starts off this poem as the speaker describes himself sitting in the baggage room at a greyhound station wondering about "eternity" (page 44). He then speaks about a multitude of different people from across the nation, all suffering in some way. Perhaps he was trying to envision the people whose baggage he was handling, and thinking about their lives and those connected to them. My best guess is that he somehow feels connected to them all while he handles their baggage.

He goes on to speak about the operating clerk, Spade, and about the vast amounts of luggage piled up on the large wooden racks. It almost seems like the speaker is amazed at his and Spade's ability to affect others' lives. He even refers to Spade as an angel at one point, conveying an almost supernatural sense. Ginsberg writes that with the racks, the workers are connected with people who have come from Japan, Mexico, and even Hawaii.

After this revelation of sorts, the speaker's thoughts figuratively come back down to where he is. He realizes he is paid next to nothing for his job, suffers physically for it, and becomes pessimistic about it all. He goes from the extreme of thinking of himself as connected with the world all the way to the other extreme of being a struggling minimum wage worker.

Howl, or as it should be called, what the f@#k?

My first impressions after reading howl are similar to my title, what the junk. I was pretty confused about the jibber jabber of what I had just finished reading. After thinking a little about the poem, though, I started to see a few patterns and some trends that were noticeable throughout the poem. I'm not saying I come close to understanding much of anything about this poem, but I'll give a shot at what i got out of it.

The poem starts off with three lines that more or less introduce the rest of part 1. Ginsberg begins writing that the speaker saw "the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness" (page 9). He introduces the general subject of part one as being various people of his generation who have descended into some abnormal state of mind. I found it useful to look up dynamo as an electric generator or a very energetic person, both of which go hand in hand.

After these initial three lines, Ginsberg spends about the next ten pages addressing these great minds that have been destroyed. He in this section starts every line with "who," the who being the various minds that have been destroyed. Each line in this section describes people doing incredibly obscene and alarming actions, such as "walking all night with shoes full of blood" and "whoring through Colorado" (pages 14 and 15). Other actions mentioned were some crude sexual remarks, but one theme i noticed throughout this section was the constant mention of drugs. I remember reading about opium, marijuana, and peyote but I'm sure there were many more references. I think Ginsberg in this section is trying to show the various depravities a man can sink to when he gives way to madness. This madness can be created from drugs, as alluded to by the constant drug references, or from racism, or any idea that can drive a person to madness. Two words I looked at here for clarity were copulate, which pretty much just means to engage in sexual activity, and insatiate, which relates to not being satisfied.

The second chapter of the poem, I guess you could call it, is all about Moloch, a deity whose worship was marked by the propitiatory sacrifice of children by their own parents. I feel that this section connects with the section on the actions of crazy people. It describes a disturbing deity made more than likely by crazed human beings, just further illustrating the ridiculous things that the human mind can create.

The final section talks about Carl Solomon, who the poem is actually written for. Solomon was an author who voluntarily admitted himself into a mental hospital. Ginsberg relates to Solomon's mental troubles, saying that he too is in Rockland, presumably the mental institute, where he "screams in a straightjacket" and "where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to your body" (page 25). Ginsberg is here saying that he, too, is fit for a mental hospital. I think the overall meaning of the poem is trying to convey the fact that everybody's mind can sink into a crazed state, emitting a barbaric yawp or howl.

The next poem, A Supermarket In California, involves Ginsberg repeatedly referencing Walt Whitman and seeing himself walking through a supermarket with Whitman. I honestly had no idea what was going on in this poem. Perhaps Ginsberg wishes to be a transcendentalist like Whitman, and is talking about the normality and consumerism in the supermarket. Maybe Ginsberg just wanted to speak about his longing for a conversation with Whitman, who he calls a respected teacher in the poem. I'm not sure of the meaning of the poem, but it certainly shows a reverence to Whitman.

The Glass Menagerie Scene 7

Scene 7 of The Glass Menagerie almost exclusively dealt with the interactions between Jim and Laura. Although the beginning of the scene consists of Amanda making small talk with Jim again saying things like "isn't electricity a mysterious thing?," the main content of the scene involves Jim and Laura getting reacquainted (page 68). Jim, although already engaged, seems to fully enjoy getting to know Laura. With his easygoing and confident manner, Laura slowly loses her nervousness and begins to feel at ease with Jim. One of her precious glass animals is even damaged, yet she shows no remorse for the broken unicorn. This speaks to the amount of importance she gives to Jim.

Although Jim and Laura don't turn out falling for each other, Jim does teach Laura a great lesson. He tells her that she "doesn't have the proper amount of faith in herself" and has an "inferiority complex" (pages 80, 81). Although she is visibly shaken when she realizes that Jim is engaged to Betty, she bravely smiles at the end of their conversation, suggesting her increased strength in herself.

After Jim leaves, Amanda of course explodes at Tom for bringing an engaged man as a gentleman caller. Tom, having had enough, declares, "The more you shout about my selfishness to me the quicker I'll go, and I won't go to the movies!" (age 96). Tom proceeds to leave the situation entirely, getting fired from work and exiting the apartment forever. Tom's longing for adventure and meaning for his life eventually supersedes the feelings he has for caring for his family.

In the end, everyone goes their own way. Jim leaves to get engaged, Tom leaves to search for better things in his life, and Amanda and Laura are left in the apartment. Perhaps doomed to wasting away to nothing in their apartment, Laura at least gives some hope by smiling at her mother in the final scene.

After reading The Catastrophe of Success, the biggest thing that stood out to me was the need for isolation. After blowing up to celebrity status almost overnight, Williams expressed his need to get back to the simple life by moving down to Mexico to write A Streetcar Named Desire. I think everyone can feel this feeling of needing to be alone. I'm sure being well known can just magnify this desire.

The Glass Menagerie

I came into reading the Glass Menagerie really knowing nothing about the book. I had heard of it before, but really had no clue on what the story is about. To start off, I wasn't sure what menagerie meant so I looked it up as a collection of wild or unusual animals, esp. for exhibition. After reading the first 66 pages of the play, I can readily assume that the title comes from both the glass collection that Laura keeps and the collection of very fragile people that are living together.

Two other words looked up were parish: a local church with its field of activity, and D.A.R.:a patriotic society of women descended from Americans of the Revolutionary period, organized in 1890.

Since the play is a character study of the members of the Wingfield family, I'll spend a little time discussing what I think about each person. First off, there's the mother, Amanda. Amanda is stuck in the past, constantly reminiscing about the days of her youth. She discusses about how she "received-seventeen!-gentleman callers!"(page 8). She wants to focus on the good fortune she had in her past. Back then, she was a popular socialite. Now, she is a mother of two with no husband to speak of. She now tries make it her aim for her daughter Laura to be just like her-having gentleman callers beckoning at every time of the day.

Unfortunately for Amanda, Laura doesn't fit the mold of socialite. She is a very shy girl, who is content with her old records and her glass menagerie. Tom might say it best when he remarks that she "lives in a world of her own-a world of little glass ornaments" (page 48). Despite her mother's constant badgering, Laura simply wishes to keep to herself. Even attending typewriting school was too much for Laura, who instead took long solitary walks. Laura is slightly crippled, which adds even more to her want for isolation.

Tom, on the other hand, feels the need for adventure. Although he wants action and intrigue in his life, he is instead stuck working in a warehouse in a low level job paying for the apartment's rent. He goes to the movies for hours at a time in order to get release from his mundane life. He transports himself to the world of cinema to forget about his hum ho life and find something more. He experiences a revelation, though, when talking to Jim. He realizes that "people go to the movies instead of moving...I'm tired of the movies and I'm about to move!" (page 61). Tom finally realizes that his fantasies are proving fruitless and that the only way for him to experience some action in his life is for him to get out and experience something new.

Two Short Stories on Two Young Firls

The first of the two short stories I read was The Flowers by Alice Walker. This story starts out innocent enough, describing a young girl taking a stroll around her family's farmland. Myop, the young girl, seems carefree and completely juvenile. Living up in a very rural area with probably only her family, she seems like she is completely free from any kind of corruption. The only thing that startles her at all is the fact that "her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose" of a rotting human corpse (line 21). Only then did she give "a little yelp of surprise" (line 23).

This scene interests her very much, because she hadn't ever seen anything like it before. At first, she doesn't even act emotional at all about the scene. She picks a rose from near the body, then it seems as if she slowly realizes what she's found as she sees the noose of the rope. She laid down her flowers, "and the summer was over" (line 33). The summer ending represents the loss of innocence she experiences by discovering the rotting corpse. Every child at some point experiences this loss of innocence, although it's normally a lot less drastic than finding a rotting corpse. Once innocence is lost, though, it is over, and not coming back.

The next story, Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid illustrates a problem that pertains to some parents: they talk too much and don't listen enough. The story is almost completely made up of the mother's dialogue to her daughter. The daughter, however, gets only 25 words for herself in the entire story. The mother spends most of her time telling the girl how to do household chores, but more disturbingly alludes to her daughter wanting to be a "slut" and instructing her how to act differently. The mother seems extremely strict, railing against benna on Sundays, which is a type of Antigua folk music. Even when the girl interrupts her mother's ranting for a short bit, the mother either ignores the question or replies with a biting remark. The entire piece to me showed how ridiculous some strict parents can become in trying to discipline and instruct their children. Ultimately, they need to take time to listen as ell as talk to their children.

Robert Frost Poetry

Although I read all of the Robert Frost poems assigned, I will only take the time to explain two of the poems, Birches and Mending Wall.

The first poem I read, Birches, was a tough poem for me to understand. It took me a couple of readings to really get into what I thought Frost was trying to tell me. The word birches can be defined as small to medium sized trees. I looked that up to help get a visual idea of what the poem was describing physically. I also looked up the word bracken, which means a cluster of ferns or a thicket. Roughly the first half of the poem contains vivid imagery of what birches look like, especially when they are bent by either ice or by humans. Frost uses this physical imagery to set up symbolism later on in the poem.

The poem moves on to describing a boy going through the birches, knocking them all down until they are all arched to the ground. Frost then transitions to wishing he could personally go back to swinging birches. Frost likens the swinging of birches to a kind of relief from the world; he thinks of it as taking a break from daily life. The speaker describes that when "life is too much like a pathless wood, where your face burns and tickles with cobwebs broken across it and one eye weeping," he would like to take a break from this world (lines 44-46). Frost cleverly uses climbing a birch tree as a comparison to taking a break from daily troubles. The use of the phrase "snow white trunk" alludes to climbing the birch as a very pure experience, almost heavenly (line 55).

The speaker, however, does not wish to detach himself completely from the earth, he still wants to come back. After he experiences his withdrawal from society by climbing up the birch, the tree will slowly give way and let him back down to life on earth. In doing this Frost is saying that he is taking a break from earth and life, and after some time contentedly comes back to his life.

The second poem, Mending Wall, proved even more difficult for my comprehension. Although no words were extremely difficult, I had trouble getting a lot out of it. I did look up the word elf to find that it probably here means mischievous person, especially a child. Literally speaking, the poem talks about a neighbor and his thoughts on a wall that separates his property from his neighbor's property. He repeats the line, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall" a couple of times, showing that although his neighbor is certainly in support of the wall, others voice contrasting opinions on the matter (line 1).

I can only guess at what Frost was trying to communicate to the reader, but I think it has something to do with how much we open up ourselves to others. The neighbor uses the phrase, good fences make good neighbors many times, expressing many peoples' thoughts on how they believe keeping everything to themselves is the best way to live. The speaker, however, speaks on how he wondered "what [he]was walling in or walling out" when he built the fence (line 34). He wonders what the consequences will be of keeping himself inside of the wall he built and others outside.

Carver and Pound's Poems

The first poem I read was Pound's "In a Station of the Metro." After my initial reading, I was fairly confused on what the author was trying to convey from the couplet. I looked up the exact definition of apparition, which came out to be "a supernatural appearance of a person or thing, esp. a ghost." This helped me figure out the what I believe the author is trying to tell the audience.

From the title, it seems like the speaker is in some kind of metro station. He describes seeing an "apparition of faces in the crowd" (line 1). This implies that the reader is not looking merely at each face from a mere physical standpoint, but instead he sees them as a singular enmity. This idea is further shown from the second line in which the speaker describes the faces as "petals on a wet, black bough" (line 2). A bough defined is a branch of a tree. So, by saying that the faces represent the petals on a bough, the author is saying that every human face each makes up a part of something bigger. The faces are all parts of a human mosaic, a large melting pot of different people, thrown together to form one picture.

The second poem, "Photograph of My Father In His Twenty Second Year" by Raymond Carver, offers a somber look at the relationship between a son and his father. In the first line, the author uses the phrase, "dank, unfamiliar kitchen" to allude to the fact that the speaker has not been in the kitchen for a while, suggesting that the author is perhaps a young man who has already moved out of the house (Line 1).

The author then describes a picture of his father that he finds in the kitchen. The next eight lines or so are devoted to thoroughly describing the picture of his young father. The initial descriptions seem fairly objective until the last line of the second stanza, in which the speaker tells us that "all his life my father wanted to be bold" (Line 10). The next stanza shows the speaker's mixed feelings about his father. He states that he does indeed love his father, and yet he realizes that his father has many faults, including a sore lacking of boldness, apparently. Also, the speaker's lack of knowledge of a fishing hole tends to point to his father perhaps ignoring his son, not spending much time with him.

I think many people, including myself, can relate to this poem. Many children grow up idealizing their fathers, thinking of their parents as ideal individuals with little or not fault. As they grow, however, people begin to realize that their fathers are normal human beings with faults, some with more than others. The speaker in this poem struggles with his father's failures in his life. He still loves his dad, but he still has trouble accepting his father's various weaknesses. After perhaps idealizing him as a child, the son has to come to terms with who his dad really is.

Andrew Finley Letter of Introduction

So, as an introduction you normally state your name first but hey mine's in the title so I guess I'll cut right to the chase. Although I am in the Packaging Science major, I have always enjoyed literature and hope to make it a big part in my future life. Even when I was little, I enjoyed writing short, creative stories. Transitioning into high school, I wrote less but picked up reading more and more. I took both AP Language and AP Literature in high school and thought both were fairly interesting. Poems have always been one part of literature that I've had a hard time getting into. Although there are some that I enjoy, I would much rather stick to some kind of narrative rather than poetry.

I do, however, enjoy reading on my own on top of school assigned texts. The topics I read tend to vary. I go through phases during which I enjoy reading simple, enjoyable books such as Harry Potter, John Grisham, etc. Then, I'll have time periods when I feel like really challenging myself. It's in these periods when I've read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which were both very challenging books. I also have read a couple of Vonnegut's books, Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, both of which were fairly easy to read but contained a lot of topics and ideas that left me thinking. Ishmael, as well, was a philosophical book that really made me sit back and think. Various theological books that discuss Christianity and Judaism especially interest me.

As far as my own writing goes, I honestly have not pursued writing fiction in quite some time. As mentioned earlier, I did it a lot when I was younger, but I've only attempted a couple of short stories lately. After taking two AP English classes in high school, I certainly have written plenty of essays on various topics. I have written one rap song on the use of rhetoric for an English 103 extra credit project, and that turned out to be a lot of fun when my suite mate recorded it on garage band. I normally don't blog or write elaborate emails, although I do instant message with people plenty of times. Although I dabble in fiction from time to time, my writing mostly sticks to communication and essays nowadays.

I needed to take another English class for my major, and I chose English 215 because I already thoroughly enjoy reading contemporary literature. I didn't see myself really enjoying reading 18th century works or Shakespeare. I have found that I can relate better to more modern contemporary literature and thus get more out of it.

As I said before above, I'm not the best at poems, but here's a little ditty about my Clemson experience.

Growing up a Tiger fan I thought I would come here,
Although as a senior in high school I felt some fear.
Would I really like Clemson or think it was lame?
All I knew beforehand just came from football games.
Well when I moved in as a freshman my answers came,
I now know why Clemson has gotten such fame.
Both in the classroom and out I have found
Success and fun that knows no bounds.
As a sophomore now I know what message to send;
I hope that my time here at Clemson will never end.