Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Journal #25

Honestly, I think everyone has at least a little bit of a mask, if that makes sense. I don't know very many people that are comfortable with just openly speaking about their problems, they're all guarded. Maybe that's because that's just how my friends are, I don't know. I don't think that they are purposely pushing people away, though. I do not know if this would count as an example of "wearing a mask", but a while ago my friend got dumped by his girlfriend of over a year, and he would not talk about it with anyone. Like I said, I do not know if that counts as wearing a mask, but he was not being open about it, and he was holding in all of emotions. By doing that I guess he was kind of pushing people away, which is sort of like wearing a mask.
I can not remember the last time that I realized that I was wearing a mask. I am sure that I wear one just subconsciously to sort of help keep my personal life in my own mind, if that makes sense. I do not like when people talk endlessly about themselves and everything that is going wrong in their life openly to other people, so why would I want to do that to people? I wear that mask so that I do not annoy people with my personal issues. I wear a mask whenever I am feeling sad so that I do not get bombarded with questions because to me, asking questions makes the issue worse. I can not remember when the last time I was really sad, though. I suppose I just do not like to talk about my problems to others because I like solve them myself, and I do not want to be judged by other people. I do not mind listening to other peoples' problems though, as long as they do not talk about them constantly. I know a few people who only ever talk about themselves and how "sucky" their life is, and I hate it.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Pit and the Pendulum - Dark Romanticism

There are just a few main, distinguishing characteristics of dark romanticism that I found repeated over and over when researching the topic. These are as follows: dark romanticists believe people are naturally prone to sin and evil, they believe the world is dark, decaying and mysterious, they believe that nature reveals truth about the world but that when nature reveals things about life they are mysterious and evil, and dark romanticists didn't ignore evil, but they acknowledged it and the horror of it. I also believe an aspect of dark romanticism is exploration of the darker side of the spiritual realm and the way that it clashes with our own in points that we can see on certain occasions. The belief in the evil and supernatural is very evident in some works of dark romanticists.

The Pit and the Pendulum, written by Edgar Allen Poe, a distinguished dark romanticist, is a clear example of many ideas of dark romanticism. The first place in which this is showcased is in the mood as the story opens. The feeling of the story is immediately set with the foreboding words of the first sentence: "I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me." So already, as the story opens, the narrator has managed to settle an air of depression and hopelessness upon the scene. Later in the same paragraph the narrator describes his judges as though the very lips on their faces were some great symbol of evil and finality. Through these examples the author has illustrated the characteristic of the horror of evil(Poe).

The way the world is decaying and mysterious is illustrated when the narrator awakens in a dark, disgusting prison. Upon further exploration he deduces that he is in a circular prison with a deep pit in the center which it is intended for him to fall into. At one point rats enter his prison and attempt to eat his food. This disgusting filth and these vile living conditions show the decaying and mysterious nature of the world(Poe).

The prison the narrator is in is very inhuman in the way it punishes him. The pain inflicted upon him is both physical and mental. He is tormented both by the grotesqueness and unhygienic nature of the prison and the prospect of falling to his death or being sliced open by the scythe, physically, and he is tormented mentally by the constant, slow descent of the scythe and eventually the slow progress of the walls of the prison as they push him inwards towards the pit. The combination of these many torments, rather than a slow, quick death, prove that humans are naturally evil and prone to do bad things to one another(Poe).

The tale of the pit and the pendulum is both a horror story for the ages and a lasting example of the era of dark romanticism. As described above, the fundamental ideas of dark romanticism are all represented within the short story. It is truly a classic sample of the genre that is dark romanticism.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 263-273. Print.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Raven Criticism Analysis

"The Raven" is one of Edgar Allen Poe's most famous poems. It draws in it's readers with deep inner thoughts of the mind, put out into the open by grief, suffering, and insanity. Edgar Allen Poe was a dark romanticist, and in being this, he wrote many things about the darker side of human nature, of mystery, of the psychological mind, and of darker spiritual phantasms. "The Raven" is a dark tale of a man going practically insane from the grief of his lost love, Lenore, and talking to a raven--a symbol of death--who only replies to the man, "Nevermore." The tale has many different references in it making the symbolic and figurative meaning stronger. It can be interpretted many different ways: a grieving man losing his mind due to the suffering from the loss of his beloved, a dark tale revealing the author's own feelings toward love, or a historical meaning, such as Dave Smith, author of a criticism of "The Raven," believes. "If we read "The Raven," despite its absence of specific local details, as an "awareness" of the life of America in 1845, we see that Poe has conjectured the nightmare of the individual cut off from history, abandoned by family, place, and community love. He experiences personally what the South will experience regionally and the country will, down the long road, experience emotionally. Though he means to celebrate Lenore, what he most intensely celebrates is the union with community, the identity of place and people which Poe simultaneously has and has lost" (Smith). Dave Smith believes that Poe's poem is Edgar Allen Poe's portrayal of the country at the time, something that I had never thought of, but that is interesting and also relevant. This idea would be accurate with the Romanticism Period characteristics, in which they wrote of emotions, nature, and patriotism. Smith's connection of the poem to the South does seem logical and it seems to fit the Romanticism time period."In this, in 1845, he speaks for the Southern white and, paradoxically, for the slave paralyzed in his garden and also dispossessed" (Smith). However, even though this does make sense, I do not agree with David Smith. I think that Edgar Allen Poe is mainly coming across and giving a story of how grieving and not doing anything to stop one's suffering of a loved one eventually makes that person go insane. He or she loses their minds to the grief and anguish caused by the loss of the loved one. "It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven "Nevermore" (Poe, 260). I think that the poem is merely the suffering of a loved one, Lenore. Edgar Allen Poe's very articulate ryhming scheme and his use of words to create a dim and bleak, yet sincere tone, tell the story of a lonely, sad, loveless man, rather than an analogy to the South and historical United States, as David Smith believes.

Works Cited

Smith, Dave. "Edgar Allan Poe and the Nightmare Ode," Southern Humanities Review 29, no. 1 (Winter 1995): pp. 4-5, 9-10. Quoted as "Poe as a Southern Writer" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPEAP26&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 23, 2010).
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Raven." American Literature. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 257-260. Print.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The Raven

A man is sleeping from reading a book, and he hears a small tapping noise on his chamber door. He shakes it off thinking it is only a visitor. He sleeps again, but wakes to the same tapping noise again. He goes to the door opens it, but he finds no one there. Then he hears a tapping noise on the window, and as he opens up the window, a raven flies into his room and sits on a bust of Athena, the greek goddess of wisdom and war. He asks the raven what his name is and it replies. "Nevermore." He asks of Lenore, his dead wife whom he grieves, and the raven again replies, "Nevermore." He then asks if his suffering for Lenore will ever go away, and the raven replies, "Nevermore." He tells the raven to leave him, but the raven, alas, says, "Nevermore."

This poem is dark and mystical, and from the literal translation, one would not know this. However, Poe uses many literary devices to make this poem how Poe intended it to be. For one, he uses illusion, or referencing something of another piece of work or art. "But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--Perched, and sat, and nothing more." (Poe, 258). Here, Pallas refers to Athena. Athena was the protector of wisdom and innocence, and in the poem, she is used as protection of the man's mind. A raven was commonly used as a symbol of death. As the raven flies and sits on the bust of Athena, it symbolizes that the innocence, the wisdom, and essentially, the man's mind, dies, or he goes insane.

Poe also uses repetition in his poem to set the dark theme. The raven continues to say, "Nevermore," and only that word. The raven says nothings else but that. And as the man asks the questions to the raven, and the raven gives him these terrible replies, the man perishes in his anguish and grief.

Poe's poem is a symbol of darkness and death. The man, suffering from the loss of his beloved Lenore, loses his mind in his grief. He talks to a raven, believes the answers from the raven, and goes insane. The man loses himself in his sadness and suffering. The Raven symbollically shows us that when one wallows around in his or her grief and suffering and does nothing to escape it, they eventually lose themselves, and their innocent selves die in their anguish.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Journal #24

This blog is about a time when my mind scared me or played tricks on me. I must say, now that I'm older this does not happen very much. Today I thought I saw someone standing by my dad's car for just half a second, but no one was actually there. I was not scared though, I just figured it was a piece of hair in my eyes that look like a shadowed figure. I think the last time that my mind actually tricked me and made me scared was when I was seven or something. I used to afraid of walking through my house at night when all the lights were off because I thought that there were little ghosts and a t-rex in my house somewhere. I was actually legit scared that there were because I would see the shadows of things, and my mind would morph the shape into something I feared. I cannot recall anytime recently that my mind has scared me or played tricks on me. Unless optical illusions count as a mind trick! I was just looking at optical illusions yesterday of sidewalk chalk drawings (those cool ones in cities that are detailed and look real) and for a moment I actually thought that there was a spiral staircase going down into the ground from the sidewalk. My mind tricked me, ahhh! Of course I knew what it was two seconds later, but my mind got me, none the less. My mind also frequently tricks me into thinking that there is a person standing somewhere when there isn't, just like how I explained up there ^. I think that happens to a lot of people, though. I do not see actual full blown, detailed people. My mind just sees a shadow or a blur and immediately thinks, "OOH PERSON" without actual analyzing it and thinking, "oh, lamp". I do not think I have actually been really scared because of my mind recently, though; just mildly confused.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Walden Analysis

The author of the analysis starts out by talking about how Henry David Thoreau showed the true principles of Transcendentalism through his works, specifically his most noted work, Walden. I agreed with the author's point of view that through the account of his stay at Walden Thoreau set an example for other Transcendentalism believers through his display of self-reliance, frugality, economy, a personal relationship with nature that lives in every human, and environmentalism. The author points out that through his journey to Walden he sought to separate himself from society, because one of his core beliefs was that society was destroying the world because it was taking away people's individuality. The author makes a good point in the second paragraph when he talks about the way Thoreau worked to eliminate excess in his life and not waste anything. The author points out that he built his cabin for a mere $28.12 1/2, but that the point of this endeavor was not to preach the idea of hard labor, since Thoreau did in fact build the cabin himself. But rather the idea of what Thoreau went through was that if you do not live in excess and spend a lot of money daily, there is no reason why you should even have to work hard on a daily basis. You could simply work a little bit each day and never worry about your money running out or having to work too hard to finish it. I think the fact that the author caught this is very important because many people might think that his purpose was to show that hard labor is important, not to teach that living without excess is key.
The author points out a lot of symbolism that he found in Thoreau's writings in the third paragraph. He discusses the way that some of his writings in which he described journeys that he took were not only acccounts of journeys through areas and guides to where beautiful things are, but rather they were also guides through his own spiritual journeys to find enlightenment by being in the midst of natural, beautiful things. Thoreau also uses the seasons and times of year that pass by at Walden as symbols of journeys taken by the individual throughout his or her life. They go through the journey of spring and new birth and life all the way to winter when everything dies, and then back to spring where everything is alive anew. The author does a good job of proving how much Thoreau really reflected Transcendentalism and the beauty of nature through his works. The author also discusses the difference between Thoreau and other Transcendentalists by showing that Thoreau truly wanted to commune and live within nature in order to better understand it. Other Transcendentalists, however, such as Emerson, were interested in exploring the subject but not by physically placing themselves wholly within nature itself. I thought it was a very good analysis with many valid points that proved that Thoreau was a true Transcendentalist and also explored many of his theories and ideas about life.

Works Cited
Wayne, Tiffany K. "Walden." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=ETRA402&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 17, 2010).

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Journal #23

This blog is about "unplugging" from electronics and all other things of the sort. First of all, I'm just gonna throw it out there that if I had to unplug, no offense to you Mr. Langley, but if I had to unplug I would not be able to attend your class! Or, well, I would have to not use a computer and not look at the big electro-screen thing. Uhm, if I had to unplug from electronics and stuff, I would probably get really bored. I would not go crazy or anything, and I would not go into a panic attack and start to cry, I would just be so monumentally bored all day. I do not text a whole lot, or at least I have not been lately, so my phone is never really being so I would not care if I had to give it up for a day or two. The same goes with TV, I do not watch TV very much at all. I do not ever have time to watch TV anymore because I have mountains of homework to do every night. Speaking of homework, my pre-calculus would never get done because I need a calculator to do it. I would probably miss my laptop if I had to give it up for a while, even though it's a hunk of junk that randomly dies and never connects to the internet unless I restart it eight billion times. I would, sadly, miss facebook. I can live without it for a day or two, but anything more than that just really starts to annoy me. My ipod's headphone jack is broken so I know I would not miss that...
I think unplugging for a day would be an interesting adventure. Maybe I'll try it sometime. It would probably do some people a lot of good to unplug for a day, though. I know a large multitude of gamers who do nothing but sit at home in front of the TV or computer and play video games alllll day. It would really help them to unplug for at least a day and get out and about. That's all I really have to say about "unplugging", it sounds fun, if I had time >:(.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Thoreau v. Gandhi

Thoreau and Gandhi's two pieces, "Civil Disobedience" and "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March", are both very influential pieces based upon acts of protest. They are very different in some ways but also much alike in others. Clearly the most fundamental similarity is the act of protest happening in both of the works. Thoreau's cause is a protest against poll taxes that Thoreau protests against by simply refusing to pay it. He then spends a night in jail for his protest and refusal and tells the tale of his stay in the local jail. Gandhi's protest is against the tax on salt that is being imposed upon the people of India. His cause is also a protest against this tax, but his speech is a plan for protest rather than an account that is written down after the protest. The speech takes place the night before the protest, hence its title "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March." In his speech he discusses three different ways in which the people can protest the tax peacefully without using any form of violence.
The writing styles of the two men are very different however. Thoreau almost makes it seem as though everything is about him in his works. He talks about how the government is wronging people and it all comes off as almost a way he is complaining about he himself is being wronged specifically. His work was not so much a call to arms for a chance to occur as it was a dissection of the very problems he saw in the government as a whole. Because of this he does not seem to touch the readers on quite as much of a personal level I do not believe. Gandhi, on the other hand, was very good at touching people on a personal level. The whole point of his speech was to rally together troops and call them to action in order to get something done peacefully and efficiently. His cause was not personal, but rather it was to benefit the entire nation and stop the wrongful occurrences he felt were being imposed upon his people. His main concern was to make life better for the people not just for himself. For this reason I felt as though he touched the audience on much more of a personal level. I believe the important thing to take away from these speeches is the point that protest and change do not always have to come at the price of blood. Sometimes people can be mature adults and handle things in an adult matter, which means talking about them or even protesting them but in a peaceful and non-violent way. These works stand as examples of that. In Gandhi's case these works went on to become actions that eventually led to change. In the case of Thoreau, although he might have influenced many people with his works, I do not believe there is an immediate source of action that can be verified. However both men have provided us with one thing and that is the inspiration to affect change with our words rather than our weapons, and that is an invaluable lesson.

Works Cited

Gandhi, Mahatma. "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March." American Literature. Comp. Jeffory Willhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 229-30. Print.


Thoreau, Henry D. "Civil Disobedience." American Literature. Comp. Jeffory Willhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 222-27. Print.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Journal #22

I think it would be okay to disregard the law only if you were in a critical situation. Most laws are reasonable, and they are made to insure your safety. I think the only law that can be bent a little bit would be speed limits. I can understand speeding a little bit, but only within a reasonable limit, like 2 or 3 miles per hour over the limit. I highly doubt that there is a person in America that hasn't sped at all. Speeding is a law that is difficult to completely enforce, so I can understand breaking it. However, going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit is way too much, and you would be endangering those around you by having to weave in and out of traffic. Even the speed laws have their limits.
My idea of a critical situation is basically when someone's life is on the line. I can not really think of a law you would possibly have to break if someone's life was on the line. Speeding, maybe, if they were dying in the back seat of your car or something. But even then, you would probably think to call an ambulance first before trying to play hero and drive the dying person to the hospital yourself. If someone was threatening or hurting you, it is not against the law to fight back because that's just self-defense. I am having a difficult time thinking of reasons to break the law. Disregarding the law for drugs is just stupid in my opinion because they are not something someone absolutely needs. I can maybe understand disregarding the law to steal medication for your dying brother or something because you don't have money, but even that is kind of stretching it. I suppose if you were trapped in a building full of deadly chemicals and broke down a door to escape that could be seen as defacing public property. I think being threatened is really the only reason to break the law.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Analysis - "Emerson and the Work of Melancholia"

In his criticism, Edmundson brings up the reason of why Ralph Waldo Emerson began to write Romanticism literature. Emerson refused to mourn the dead. Even when his wife died in 1831, Emerson refused to mourn because it was almost like showing weakness and conformity, which he was very against. Edmundson says that Emerson lost his best friend and brother, Charles. Then he talks about how James Cox told Emerson it was okay to be sad in his The Circles of the Eye. "Getting over the deaths of loved ones is no tired or traditional 'spiritual' vision for Emerson precisely because it is a literal breathing in, or inspiration, of the death in life" ("Emerson and the Work of Melancholia."). I think that after reading this, Emerson became aware of everything that he was holding in. He finally let it out by mourning two of the people closest to him. I think that because of that new feeling of mourning, Emerson channeled a lot of his new emotions into his literature. This helped them to express even more Romanticism because of all of the emotion that Emerson put into his writing. Later in the Edmundson's criticism, he discusses an excerpt that can be found in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Compensation, "Every soul is by … intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, and laws, and faith, as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant…. And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day…. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks" ("Emerson and the Work of Melancholia."). This quote is about how Emerson handled all of the recent deaths he suffered through. He tells of how he continued to ignore it until he got used to almost having a "shell" on his back. By not facing this problem, it continued to grow.

I think that Emerson rejected Romanticism later in his life because he finally accepted the deaths of his loved ones. He began writing in the Romanticism style because he had a lot of bottled up emotion from not originally mourning the deaths of his loved ones. All of those new emotions he was feeling were then channeled into his writing, thus giving it a Romanticism feel. Once he accepted those deaths, I think he experienced a sense of calm that put him at peace with the deaths. His motivation for writing Romanticism literature was gone. I think he reflected back on his old works of Romanticism literature and saw that he was no longer as compassionate as he used to be. His over abundance of emotions had finally been quelled, and in it's wake it left Emerson without the will to write Romanticism literature any longer.

"Emerson and the Work of Melancholia." Raritan (Spring 1987). Quoted as "Emerson and the Work of Melancholia" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Updated Edition, Bloom's Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. (accessed November 7, 2010).

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Journal #21

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Benjamin Franklin both had theories for making themselves better people. Emerson made a whole essay, Self-Reliance, about how much better off a person would be if they were more self-reliant and not dependent. He also believed that an individual should believe in themselves and be who they want to be. He thought that an individual should not conform to society, they should be their own person. He believed that the world was conforming too much and everyone was becoming too similar to everyone else. Emerson believed in being independent and self-confident, which is not exactly what Benjamin Franklin was thinking about in his autobiography. Benjamin Franklin believed that his Thirteen virtues would slowly help him become a better person over the course of his life. Many of his virtues were about bettering himself and helping others. Franklin was more dependent on others than Emerson, I think. Franklin stuck to his virtues for a long time, but eventually he gave in and slowly began to fail to conform to his virtues. This is where I believe that Emerson and Franklin differ. Emerson was very pro-independence, and he believed that people should be different and non-conforming. Franklin's views are almost the exact opposite. He created his thirteen virtues to help him conform to society, I think. He wanted to fit in and be known as the "friendly man" whom everyone could depend on. Well maybe not that last part. But either way, Emerson was definitely more opposed to conformity than Franklin.
I think that their writing style is very similar. Both Emerson and Franklin's writing style is very direct and to the point. Even though Franklin was an author during the rationalism time period, and Emerson was an author during the Romanticism literary period their writing is similar. Romanticism and rationalism are pretty much opposites but in this case, I find them to be very much the same. I think I like Emerson better than Franklin, I found his Self-Reliance essay to be more easy to relate to than Franklin's thirteen virtues.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Journal #20

This blog is about the importance of self-reflection and taking a break from society. I am going to discuss taking a break from society first. I think that it is probably good for you to take a break from society once in a while. I think if a person spends too much time in society, they start to subconsciously conform to what others want, and I do not like that. Taking a break from society is like refreshing your mind. I think you become more independent and more like your true self. You could go camping in the woods to get away from society. You could build a tree house in the giant oak tree in your front yard that you think is s beautiful, and you wish you could be one with the tree because the tree is not influenced by society. That example was a little ridiculous, but I would do it.
I think self-reflection is important, but not exactly necessary. It is good to look back on your accomplishments, or failures, and think about what you've done. You can learn a lot from your mistakes. You could reflect back on that car you bought ten years ago that ran really badly, and now that you're thinking of buying a new car, you know what not to buy. Once again, that example is really ridiculous, but it is also good advice. Self-reflection could help you go a long way in life down a path of success. I think it could also make you more wise. I also think self-reflection is something that people should do maybe once they get out of high school. They could reflect back on their experiences and laugh about the memories. Or at least that's what I would do. I think it is important to reflect back on all of the important aspects of your life because not only do you learn from them, it will also help you to never forget them.

Journal #19

I do not really like the idea of having a Utopian United States. I am okay with United States the way it is now. I mean, a few things could change, but they would probably be really small things like saving the homeless or having less homework in school. I am going to describe MY ideal United States, not the ideal United States or everybody else because I think that would be more fun for me so there could actually be a possibility for me liking this blog.
In my ideal United States, there would be no poverty! I do not know how I would pull that off. I don't mean like a socialist government. I mean homeless people can get off the streets, and people that are having trouble with money can feel financially secure! People who make an obnoxious amount of money would continue to make there current salary, though.
I would also force every Taco Bell to undergo a health check every week. Yesterday Brandon opened up his potato taco from Taco Bell and there was a dead ant in it. I am now extremely afraid of eating at Taco Bell. So yeah, health checks to make sure there are no more ants because that's disgusting.
In my ideal United States, everyone would obey four way stop signs.
In my ideal United States, bluray movies wouldn't cost thirty dollars.
In my ideal United States, the economy would be ten times better than it is right now, and our relations with other countries would improve, and we would magically keep out all of the terrorists, or as Obama says, "Religious extremists" or something really dumb like that.
In my ideal United States, there would be a park in every city or town.
In my ideal United States, when someone ran for a political position, they wouldn't create stupid commercials that put down the other candidates that play on tv every single minute.
In my ideal United States, all WalMarts would become classier.
That's pretty much all I can think of.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendall Holmes

The poem is very easy to understand literally. It is written in plain English with not a lot of big words or phrases. Basically, the poem is talking about a very old man. He passes by the door of the narrator twice while hobbling with his cane. When he was younger it is said that he used to be the best man in town. But now he just wanders the streets alone and seems to mourn about all of the people he used to know who are gone. The people that he loved have long since been buried. The narrator’s grandmother, who is dead, told him that long ago the man had a Roman nose and bright red cheeks. However, now he has a thin nose and a crack in his back and his voice cracks when he laughs. And the narrator knows that it is wrong to laugh at him but he can’t help himself because the way the old man dresses is so strange. The narrator ends by saying if he lives to be the last leaf upon the tree he will be fine if the youth laugh, as he is laughing now, at the silly branch that he clings to.
There are a few similes used in the poem. They say that his cheek used to be like a rose in the snow, and they say that his nose now sits on his face like a staff. The only other poetic device used is likening the old man to the last leaf on a tree because he is the last one left where many used to be, and they liken his style and mannerism and the way they are thought of as weird by the youth to the way an old bough on a tree looks strange when it has only one leaf left on it.
The hidden meaning is that the old man is like the last leaf hanging from the bough of a tree. All the other leaves that have fallen off already are the people that he loved who have already died and been buried. The bough is old and outdated and so to outside observers it looks strange, which means that the old man is old and outdated and those around him who see him think that his mannerisms and dress are strange, so they laugh at him.

Journal #18

I really don't know how to write poetry, but here goes!

All around me leaves fall to the ground,
Falling softly, they don't make a sound.
I wish I could be just like a tree in fall,
Colorful, bold, and oh so tall.
The colors range from brown to red,
The leaves all dance above my head.
The leaves all fall dead by the end of the day,
I look forward to the new leaves sprouting next May.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Thanatopsis Analysis

Literal Meaning:

Nature talks to nature lover and steals his/her thoughts
When you’re feeling sad, go into nature and follow it’s teachings
Nature will reach out to you
You will not die alone because nature will be with you
All people are buried in the same earth
Nature decorates the earth where people are buried.
The sun makes the earth jovial.
One person is only a small part of the population
Seclude yourself- the dead are also there.
If you withdraw from the living, you are with the dead
Everybody living will die at some point.
Life goes on after you die
Everybody will join the dead at some point.
When death comes, relax and accept it

Poetic Devices:
There are many poetic devices which are used in William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis, One that sticks out a lot to me is Imagery. There is a ton of imagery in this poem regarding the heavens, nature, and then a large portion about death. It wants you to think death as a peaceful thing and so it refers to beautiful things that surround us our whole life.
There are also metaphors within this poem. They are a little rare, but they do reside within the poem. Bryant compares the last thought of death to a bad omen over your soul in the first stanza for an example. Bryant uses metaphors to put forward an easier way to read, and a recurring thought of death with his metaphors within Thanatopsis.
I do believe that William Cullen Bryant uses a small amount of personification within his writing like when he mentions the valleys and the brook, he says they are respectable and they stretch in silence, which they cannot do.
Bryant uses many similes within this poem. It occurs many times throughout the poem like when he says,"the hills rock ribb'd and ancient like the sun," or, "When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit."
There are also three stanzas within this poem as they all reflect it seems to be different stages of accepting your death.

Figural Meaning:
The meaning of Thanatopsis is very deep. It says that you should accept your death. You should not be afraid because whatever you did on earth is forgotten once you die; you are just another part of the earth like past kings or thieves. Nature will embrace you once you are dead no matter what you have done in your life. So live peacefully and do not think about death.