The Awakening #2

i just want to talk briefly about what i was thinking about in class today in terms of the symbolism of Adele always wearing white or being associated to something white. As we know, Adele is just an average woman in the Creole society. She cares for her children imaginably, dresses and acts just as a Creole woman should, and lives out the expectations and mannerisms that are acceptable in society. Outwardly, she is a "good" woman. she does exactly what she needs to do. She is surely innocent and pure. this is why she wears white all the time, one would think. but i think that there is more underneath that, particularly for the reason that Chopin wrote this novel from an edgy somewhat (for lack of better word) bitter point of view. i think that Adele surely is ignorant and pure - in terms of that society. However, i think that whiteness is kind of an opposite form of symbolism, or there is some form of irony in it, because it is pure in that society - but is that society necessarily pure? are the expectations and traditions of that society necessarily right or "the way things should be." that's why i think the white symbolism is not necessarily a direct association to innocence. Adele is certainly living the way she should be, living as good woman, by the way that she knows it, but she is ignorant. ignorant to what more is out there. this may be true, yet i dontknow if she necessarily cares anyway, for from an outward point of view she seems to be a content and happy woman. this is the way she was raised. 

The Awakening #1

These opening chapters are quite interesting. they certainly set the stage and the setting for the novel, which is naturally the element of the novel that allows the main theme and reoccuring message. this society on the Grand Isle is certainly of high class. both the men and the women have their own customs, and if one does not follow those customs, they are looked down upon and cast out. The readers become aware by the first couple chapters of the type of women that Edna is. She is unlike the other "Creoles," for she does not think the same as them nor does she act the same as them. She, in a sense, is not as ignorant as the other women. she has seen more of the world and more of the opportunities of life that are out there, besides this sort of life in Creole. it sort of reminds me of Heart of Darkness when Marlow goes back to Brussels after his journey to the Congo, though at this point of the novel Marlow is ending his journey, while in The Awakening, Edna is just beginning. Marlow goes back to Brussels, and because he has been more places, and seen more of the world and more of what life is like, he feels different than other people. yes, he goes along his ways and does what he needs to do there in society still, but he is different. he cannot live in peace living the way the people of Brussels do. just like Edna. we do not know necessarily much of the experience Edna has had, but we surely know that she is not ignorant and she is strongwilled and somewhat independent, atleast by her personality and mind. she does not succumb and do whatever her husband or children want her to do. im anxious to learn more of what happens with Edna and the choices she will make later in the novel. 

Poetry Response: Lilacs in September.

This poem was quite interesting. What i interpreted from this poem is that a hurricane came that september, and shocked many of the lilac flowers. Something that used to be so beautiful, but when this storm comes, they are "shocked to the root" in "a vacant lot." this vacant lot could be a representation of everything that got washed away from the storm, and these ashy dreary lilacs are all that is left. The poet decides to use a lot of heavy dense words in this short poem, i think to grasp the depth and the feeling behind it, trying to describe each part of this hurt lilac, and everything around it. how it hurts, how the branches are breaking and falling apart. how it has fallen to scant ash. and yet all around, the colored blossoms, the lively blossoms, on just your average day i assume, call out to passerbys to ask them, what will unleash itself in you when your storm comes? this is quite a heavy question. i was not expecting the ending of the poem to be like that. what will happen in me when everything is falling apart around me. what will be the ashy lilac? it poses a question that at the moment i do not know the answer. i think i interpreted this right. but i dont know if i like the poem or not, but i respect it. because it caused a reaction. i can appreciate the poet's thought and the depth of it. well done. 

Wallflowers- Poetry Response

this poem was kind of interesting. it was just straight up weird though. 

so yes - it is about how this poet views words- new words particularly. she loves words so much that she speaks of them like children, or like little babies that need to be "loved" or "taken care of." she certainly uses personification in this poem towards words, as if when people do not speak or write them, they either wait bitterly longing for someone to say them or patiently and shy. it is apparent that this poet loves writing, she loves new words and learning new ways of speaking - so much that she wants to write a somewhat silly poem and gently giggle about it. the poem was just straight up weird. i mean, the tone was light and somewhat edgy. However, the edginess is just kind of annoying. Maybe because i dont see unsaid words as a serious ordeal. It is interesting though to hear a poet's perspective on it. she certainly has an open heart and a great deal of love in her heart you can tell - for she wants to make room for all the words and have them come out and play with her. muahaha

but i wasnt so much of a fan of the poem myself

Heart of Darkness Blog #5

so this blog is pretty late obviously. BUT here i am. 

I think it is really interesting at the end of the novel how Marlow is set apart from everyone in his story. i mean, when he comes back from Africa to Europe. After he has seen this destruction that Europe has breeded in Africa - the slavery, the insanity, the inhumanity - his perception on life is incredibly different. Unlike his light mindset to go to Africa to see the "blank spaces" and fulfill his adventuresome desires, he feels heavy - he knows more - he is not as ignorant. he has seen more pain and inhumanity in the world than he has ever wanted to see, and it had allowed him to have more knowledge on life. so when he comes back to Europe, it bothers him so much- eats him at the core- when he sees these people go about their own business living their lives. they did not understand the world - understand what was going on to the land and to the people. it ate Marlow at the core. With this, there surely was an inner change in him throughout the novel. and i think that makes the novel very successful and profound when there is that sort of growth. 

whoops

that one under there is supposed to be Heart of darkness Blog #4

Heart of Darkness Blog #3

Marlow is changing and he doesnt even know it yet. i talked about in one my blogs i think that marlow is already willing to lie now for kurtz because of the brickmaker. but when marlow thinks that kurtz is dead, both marlow and the readers get this whole new surprise of what is inside him. it is like he lost almost all of his purpose. "There was a sense of emtreme disappointment, as though i had found out that i had been striving after something altogether without a substance. i couldnt have been more disgusted if i had traveled all this way for the sole purpose of talking with mr. kurtz.....now i will never hear him." In a way, kurtz has come to represent the importance of his mission. At teh beginning of the story - he was seeking out adventure - new places, etc. but now...it is as if his purpose has only become part of africa. as if the darkness controls it. this is so random but it reminds me of when people get so immersed in highschool drama - that its all they think about. they forget about the bigger picture in life - and it is like kurtz has been listening to so many people and been surrounded by such new things that it is influencing him. it seems that what should be important to marlow is not. like the "animals" that he describes, the "less valuable animals, the natives, etc" the suffering that they are having to hold. But no, these issues go way over his head. even his job goes over his head. he is being sucked into the darkness. 

Heart of Darkness Blog #3

Much of this reading is just going way over my head. its very very dense. i did think a very prominent theme in part two though was the talk of the land - of Africa, of the jungle. Conrad uses personification in a way that portrays the jungle to have a mind or a force of its own. a force that takes hold of the people living in it and changes their souls. He says, "We are accustomed to look upon the shacked form of a conquered monster, but there - there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were - no they were not inhuman. " Unlike Europe which is controlled and conquered by man - this dark land controls the people instead. THe land is not shackled. it is monstrous and free. It is like he will stop in the middle of the story in a way just to describe the outside environment and add the aspect of the heaviness of the earth around Marlow and everyone else. Not only are bad things happening to the people -to the natives - to the souls of everyone there but there is this immense power that constantly surrounds them and isolates them from the rest of the world - the civilization - the light. "Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high; and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico. It made you feel very small, very lost, and yet it was not altogether depressing, that feeling."  And it seems that the people in the "darkness," do not notice the power of the land as much. Yes they may feel small - but it is not as if it depresses them. it just subconciously changes them into something else. something darker. as if the "immense trees" swallow them up.